


Red Bangles, Black Anklets

by AvaCelt



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Biracial Mito Uzumaki, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Gen, Genocide, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Naruto Canon Era, Psychological Horror, Slavery, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Uzumaki Clan-centric, Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, War Crimes, Warring States Period (Naruto), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22107877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: In a world of warring clans and roaming beasts, a small island struggles to survive. Thousands of miles away, the Hokage loves another man so deeply, he almost forgets his duty. Deep within a jungle, a tailed beast rises. In another world, the island would die, its children scattered throughout the elemental nations, a beast shackled to its descendants for the rest of eternity. In this one, Mito Uzumaki decides to fight back. [Founders Era AU, Alternate History Rewrite, eventual Mito/Madara & Hashirama/Kakuzu, one-sided Hashirama/Madara]
Relationships: Kakuzu/Senju Hashirama, Kyuubi | Kurama | Nine-tails & Uzumaki Mito, Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama & Senju Touka, Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara, Senju Touka/Original Male Character(s), Uchiha Madara/Uzumaki Mito
Comments: 49
Kudos: 81





	1. Tempest

**Author's Note:**

> I started outlining this story back in 2015 when Kishi was dumping the last of his garbage, and I'm still mad about it, so this is my way of fixing his nonsense by rewriting the Founders Era. My knowledge of canon is manga-specific up until the Tobito reveal, and everything after that is mostly a blur until the final chapters because Kishi was 10x worse than Kubo when it came to linear storytelling. Shoutout to the Naruto wikipedia pages for feeding me canon past chapter 610, and reminding of shit I read but have forgotten because I am also an old lady. Y'all the real ones.
> 
> In this story, Mito is a whole ass thirty-seven years of age and Very Powerful and Accomplished, because according to Kishi, becoming a jinchuuriki as a grown ass adult doesn't mean you're the strongest human being alive, nah, you don't even get a shoutout when shit's finally going down in World War 4.
> 
> Also, be mindful that this is a political!fanfic masquerading as a romance novel. The lovers don't even meet until later in the story. If you're here for the sexytimes, you won't be getting much out of this until chapter twenty, hence the slow burn tag. Also, read the tags.
> 
> Thank you! Reviews are appreciated. :'>

“No.”

Ashina Uzumaki pursed his lips and swallowed heavily. “Remember who you're speaking to. That armor doesn't mean anything anymore,” he said, gesturing to the chipped, black iron. “If it's attention that you seek, then you can have it – at your _wedding_.”

Rage steadily crept into Mito Uzumaki's heart, an ugliness so raw that the hands crossed behind her back began to tremble. “You can't.” Back straight and dark brown eyes staring blankly ahead, she spoke as if she were addressing one of her soldiers.

“But I already did,” the elder clansman barked. “You will recite your vows when you arrive at the Senju base and marry their leader, as we've promised. Remember your duty to this land. Your marriage saves us from extinction. Tell me – is your pride worth a few hundred thousand deaths, and countless others displaced? There won't be an Uzushio left standing if it is.”

She didn't fail to separate her desperation and fear from her common sense. The words came easily, as steady as snow on a cold, winter morning. “But they chose me, and I'm still alive. We're not shinobi, grand-uncle, there isn't anyone strong enough to lead after me. My lieutenant is your son. You wish to install him as your Commander General?”

Any semblance of emotion dissipated from Ashina's face. He stared at Mito for some time, perhaps not as long as she was imagining, but long enough that Mito felt as if though she were being skinned alive.

“Since when do generals beg?” Ashina resounded softly. “Tell me, Mito – since when do generals _argue?_ ”

Mito's scream froze in her throat as Ashina's quick hand tore the gold patch off her rusted armor and into the low fire burning just a couple of feet away. Something broke inside of her chest. Her once blank expression was now frozen in fear. Tear tracks betrayed her personhood, exposing everything that she wanted to stay hidden deep beneath the the folds of her chipped iron.

Her grandmother sighed, shaking her head softly. “You will think us harsh now, but remember, Mito – men don't marry generals. They marry women. More than that, they _listen_ to women. Think about your decision to say no – would you rather sacrifice your title, or your army? Do you think the Senju will hesitate to retaliate? Or worse – ignore us when Kiri and other villages descend upon us? At least Senju will kill us swiftly, but the men of Kiri – do you think they won't take your red hair like they take the Uchiha's eyes?

“Our ancestors won't accept this,” she whispered to herself.

“Then let them haunt you,” her grandmother countered. “It is better to be haunted than to be hunted. Let their voices remind you of your sacrifice. House them with honor, knowing that you saved your clansmen from becoming like them.”

“And don't even _think_ about returning to the barracks,” Ashina added. “We've retrieved your belongings and put them in your father's house. This chapter of your life has concluded. As for your replacement – _I_ will lead, as I once did before you were even a twinkle in your father's eye. Remember that, former Commander General of Whirlpool. From now on, you're Princess Mito of the Uzumaki Clan, grand-niece of the clan head and current Commander General, Ashina Uzumaki. Soon, you will be the wife of the Hokage, his confidant, the first person he will seek counsel from – and when he does, remember your clan. Remember them, and remember them good.”

* * *

In the land of whirlpools, the people were plentiful.

No one really knew when life bloomed on the small island off the coast of the greater continent, but over the centuries, the land transformed from a listless mass on the water, to a home housing a few hundred thousand people. It was a popular crossing for refugees fleeing the thousand wars and the tailed beasts, and migrants who'd grown tired of the hardships in their native homelands. Many times, the ships that carried goods into the island also carried people. Sometimes they stayed, and sometimes they went. To the north, south and west, the greater continent curved around the small island. To the east lay a kingdom shrouded in mist and its annexes. Uzushiogakure existed as a speck on the ocean, bordered by fire and war. A fishing and trading community that also sold sealing techniques to the other lands, the land boasted only one port. A small city and several, smaller towns housed natives, refugees, and migrants alike, tucked away from the thousand wars coursing through the continent and the larger islands.

During the harsh winters when trade lulled and the fuinjutsu specialists of the land unsealed the food reserves, the mountains bordering the eastern and northern sides of the island teemed with human life. Some of the mountains were living seals. When unsealed, temporary homes carved into rock revealed themselves, while wooden walkways were strung by the most skilled woodsmen and fire element specialists. Fresh water was readily available down in the rivers below, and embracing their quaint, island life was the ocean itself. Though larger islands and the greater continent circled around the small community, it was the ocean that held the real power in Uzushiogakure. Down below, the giant volcano that birthed their land hummed quietly underwater, unseen and unheard by the majority of the land dwellers living above. Most knew of its existence, but few sought out the land _beneath_ the whirlpools.

In the land of eddies, the bounty was plentiful.

Rough hands embroidered thick cloth with threads of gold. Softer hands performed hand signs that sealed a month's worth of crops into a coin that fit snugly into the seal user's hand. Uzushio cultivated fishermen and artisans. It birthed mountains and rivers. It provided caves and lagoons hidden beneath veils of trees and shrouds of fog.

Varying shades and textures of red hair could be seen on every corner of the island. Thick red curls were commonplace in the port city, while fire-red tresses cascaded down the shoulders of men and women who worked the rivers and mountains. There was no kekkei genkai native to Uzushio, but the land of whirlpools was home to the living seal. It was a practice that started with the nomads of old, and developed into a cultural and economic tradition that was taught early to children who were able to manipulate chakra. For the people of Uzushiogakure, the Earth itself was a living seal. It only made sense that they learned early that nothing was truly ever gone. For many, the secrets of the world were merely hidden. Sometimes, they lurked deep in the ocean. Many times, they lurked in the trees, but mostly, they lurked in one's heart.

In the land of whirling tides, the thousand-year war had finally reached its shores.

Mito Uzumaki, sixteenth and final grandchild of the clan head's younger sister, fixed her gaze on choppy waters as the sun dipped in the horizon. At thirty-seven years of age, her face had little to show for her years and experience, courtesy of her clan's unhealthy longevity.

Beneath the tunic and trousers, however, the scars that crossed her skin stood as testaments to the time that had passed. Mito had lost count of them a long time ago, but she remembered her first. She was eleven when she joined the small, civilian army that employed three fuinjutsu specialists, two chakra manipulators learned in wind release, and one hundred soldiers who manned the waters with only their swords.

At eleven, she knew only one thing, and that was nothing. She didn't know why all four of her older sisters had to marry, or why her father kept his family in a house surrounded by reeds, or why her mother kept her away from children her age.

No one taught Mito to read nor write. None of the fuinjutsu specialists of her clan offered to teach her how to manipulate the seals they so proudly pinned to the borders of their immaculate clothes and hair. When Mito's mother finally told her that there wasn't anything specific the clan desired for her to carry out being as she was the youngest and last of the grandchildren sired, Mito went where all the lost went – the army. The choice was always there for her. Mito didn't know the first thing about looking after herself, so she chose the only other place where she knew she'd be fed daily and still be left alone to deal with the voices in her head. Marriage would benefit no one, as she barely knew how to speak, much less perform duties expected of a wife.

At eleven, Mito Uzumaki's mother left her off at the gates of the barracks and didn't turn back. On that same day, Mito lost a fight to another seaman. Her first scar was a two inch gash on her right arm. She'd earned it after fighting over a tin of loose tea leaves. Few could talk about how proud they were to have been stabbed with a piece of glass by someone they would later befriend.

Over the years, Mito saw her mother thrice, the final time at her father's funeral. At seventeen, she was promoted to Commander General by her clan leader and then-commander, Ashina Uzumaki. She took responsibility over the lives of four hundred soldiers, only thirteen of whom were shinobi learned in the art of chakra control, while the rest were non-chakra users learned in hand-to-hand combat, swordsmanship, and naval prowess.

After the army gave her its allegiance, Mito pretended to forget she even had a mother. She couldn't imagine it was any good for the woman since she'd married into the most powerful clan on the island and had only managed to give them daughters. When she was a child, she often wondered if they were even related. They shared nothing, save for a birthmark. Three moles in the shape of a triangle rested within their right elbow, moles that Mito would often count over and over again to quiet the voices in her head.

At twenty-four, when her army had blossomed to two-thousand strong, Mito learned something new. The surge in violence from the tailed beasts creeping along the beaches of the greater continent struck fear into old hearts, and the thousand-year war encroaching the borders of the small island prompted for more child soldiers, more girl soldiers. After defending the mountains facing Lightning Country, Mito visited her old house and found two of her older sisters cleaning out their mother and father's room. It was then that Mito learned that her mother had hung herself. No one had thought to invite her to the woman's funeral, seeing as Mito was off fighting clans she'd never even heard of.

Though Mito's face told strangers she was just another Uzumaki beauty worthy of marriage prospects from as far away as the desert on the greater continent, the network of raised skin beneath the folds of her tunic and trousers told stories older than most of the children that fought beneath her banner.

She'd once had a mother with thick black hair, cropped at the shoulder, and skin as dark as night. She had the uncanniest eyes, one brown, one green. Her mother had three moles the shape of a triangle inside her left elbow, and the woman hailed from any one of the one thousand clans that warred daily on the greater continent and larger islands. Her mother married her father, the youngest son of the younger sibling of the Uzumaki clan head. Her mother was merely a speck on the family tree, and she'd birthed five other specks, and only four had a purpose, while Mito had nothing. While Mito's sisters were married off to merchants and raised families in faraway lands, Mito once ate a poisonous frog because a banshee inside her head dared her to. Her sisters looked alike in their hand-drawn wedding portraits, with dark brown skin and thick red hair, a mixture of their mother and father, whereas Mito looked like her grandmother, dull brown skin with red hair so flat, one could have mistaken them for poorly dyed reeds.

She'd once had a mother who hung herself while Mito was off defending borders, performing her duties to her realm. She'd once had a mother who told her that the clan had nothing for her.

Mito had understood. When there was nothing else left to do and no one left who cared to depend on you, you went away. Where you went was up to you – but you went. You went, and you never came back. Mito chose the army, while her mother chose Death.

In the land of whirlpools, winter was the longest.

It was only the beginning of the second month, but blocks of ice had already gathered around the surrounding piers. Most of the foreign merchants had already taken their ships and gone back to the greater continent, but some still milled about, tying up loose ends and soaking up what little salt air they could muster before it was time to retreat. Mito stood barefoot on the wet sand, letting her skin absorb the cold through the soles of her feet as storm clouds brewed above.

“He's condemning you to a life of servitude,” Genki Uzumaki spat viciously. “He's been currying favor for decades now – this isn't a push to unite any lands, it's a plan to save his and the Uzumaki clan's hides! He forgets that we guard these waters as much as we guard our clan secrets. People from all over the continent found refuge here, Cousin! You leave now, and Father will have his way in getting rid of whatever he deems _unclean_.” At seventy, the older Uzumaki stood almost seven feet tall, wavy red hair framing his dark brown features. A perpetual grimace was etched onto his face, courtesy of his father, the current clan head. “He has no right to take iron that no longer belongs to him. We've followed you for twenty years – you are our Commander General, _not_ him!”

“Reconsider,” Yoringa Ugaki, Mito's second captain, whispered softly. “He stripped you of your title in private. That holds no power in the barracks.”

“ _He_ holds no power in the barracks,” Genki grumbled. “And as far as the soldiers are concerned, neither do the Senju. If Mist comes to kill us, we'll fight. We'll fight them as we fought Lightning, as we-”

“You intend to fight a thousand wars and living demons with an army of less than two thousand soldiers?” Mito interrupted. “An army with less than three hundred shinobi? An army largely made up of those who have no _idea_ what a chakra manipulator can do outside of creating seals and using a few water techniques to steer a ship?”

“You underestimate your own people,” Kishou Nijima, her general, griped. “We don't have to instigate anything. All we have to do is defend the island, and leave the rest to the sea.”

“And we are masters of the seal, Cousin,” Genki huffed. “Let them come. We'll awake Queen Mother below.”

Mito didn't turn around. “We will die.”

Like she would, long after the realm was annexed, or completely destroyed. She'd went, as the wind did, and went towards a life of serving an island she had only begun to love _after_ she'd sworn to protect it. It hadn't mattered that she was a member of a powerful but hunted clan, a girl chased by the banshees that lived in her head, because it turned out that sometimes even little girls were born without a purpose. She'd had a choice as a child, a wife during a time of war, or a protector of a realm that cared very little that she spoke to banshees at night.

She'd chosen to become a defender because defenders were left alone after night fell. For the past twenty-six years, she wasn't a woman, or a child-bearer, or an Uzumaki – she was Commander General of Uzushio's army, master of seals, defender of its borders, and an adherent of the gods of the sea. She was insignificant to the warriors of Kiri and Kumo, but she was a daughter of the rolling tides. At the end of the day, the sea and _only_ the sea could take her.

But today, on this day, she was what her sisters were before her, and on this day, the Uzumaki clan had a purpose for her. She knew her clan would eventually belong either to the greater continent or the men of Kiri who so desperately craved red hair and secret seals. Deep down, Mito knew Ashina knew _exactly_ what he was doing when he signed the marriage contract with the Senju.

With her sacrifice, the Uzumaki would survive. Uzushio would lose its autonomy, but the people would live, and maybe the army would be dissembled and everyone forced to bow to the Hokage, but they would all live. In the end, wasn't that what mattered most? A chance against the tailed beasts, beasts that only the Hokage and select few others could fight?

“We'll die if you leave,” Ugaki retorted. “We don't need one thousand shinobi to fight the continent's one thousand wars and one thousand beasts. All we need is one commander smart enough to maneuver us to safety when the time comes, and stave off the worst of the aggressors. We don't have anyone besides you brave enough to make those decisions.”

“He's selling you, Cousin,” Genki said coldly. “He's selling you for a false sense of security. Uzushio won't survive off a marriage contract. It's far too late for that.”

Mito gazed at the sea, the voices in her head disparaging her for her weakness as they always did when the whirlpools gained momentum and the rain fell hard. She thought about the robe her grandmother had prepared for her, the one she was meant to wear on her wedding day, the one the leader of the Senju would take apart at night to reveal the smooth, amber lies her clan would create for her so that no Senju would ever think that the woman who led Uzushio's small army was the same woman who laid beneath their Hokage.

“Ashina knew that when he signed the contract,” Ugaki added. “Even the smaller clans know it's useless. It's only a matter of time before either the borders are raided, or a beast ends up on our shores. People will die.”

“Only the Uzumaki will survive,” Nijima said softly. He looked directly into the small of Mito's back. “No other clan, no other _people_ will survive – only the Uzumaki. Is that what you want, Commander General?”

“Princess Mito, Nijima-san,” Mito corrected him. “Your Commander General is the leader of the island and Genki-sama's father. What you do next is up to him.”

“Coward!” Genki yelled. “You'd let an old man take your dignity? A man who deals in words instead of actions? Fight, damn it!”

Not once did Mito turn around to face the men she was leaving her soul and her army to. She continued to gaze at the darkening horizon. “I'm just a woman,” she muttered. “I'm to be someone's wife, and soon someone's mother. That is what I am.”

Even if her body belonged to someone else, the Uzumaki clan and its secrets would survive. With all of her other captains and generals – innocents would be able to survive the raids and the roaming beasts. The land would be stripped of its seals, but its people would live, and so as long as their people lived, then Uzushio lived.

The banshees in Mito's head cackled away as the rain poured in earnest.

Genki spat in disgust and stalked away, Ugaki and three other generals following him. Only Nijima stood behind her still, peering at the back of her head as the soft cloth of her tunic and trousers began to stick to her skin with the moisture in the air.

“How can one be a giver of life,” Nijima asked her, “if all they've ever done is take?”

Mito remained silent, staring out into the sea, watching as waves crashed against rocks and blocks of ice, whirlpools churning in the distance.

“Your grand-uncle,” Nijima continued, “takes more than just lives. You've only ever taken to protect. Remember that when you marry, Commander General. Remember that you left the mountains, our reeds, our water – remember that you left all of which you swore to protect and that _we_ swore to protect with you. You left them not in the hands of a giver of life, but in the hands of a taker. Remember that when you turn your back on the island – remember that for twenty-six years, you weren't an Uzumaki, but a protector of Uzushiogakure. You were a child of the sea like the rest of us. Remember that when you become just a woman.”

* * *

Two thousand miles away, Hashirama's calloused hands gripped a deathly pale arm.

“Fight them,” Hashirama begged, “please.” The latter snarled, convulsing as he spat and coughed, as if possessed by a beast. “Madara, it's me,” he sobbed, bringing a pale hand close to his face, unconsciously kissing bruised knuckles and cracked skin.

“I didn't die for you to accept defeat,” said the ghost sitting in the far corner of the room, a ghost only the pale man could hear and see. “I didn't die for you to end up so _weak_.”

“Madara,” Hashirama sobbed, “please wake up.”

“Izuna?” Madara rasped, his voice quivering like a leaf in a storm.

Tobirama Senju watched the scene as if it were a performance. He watched while his older brother cried over a man who didn't know the difference between reality and fantasy, one who saw ghosts and followed them to a river's edge. Had Tobirama not insisted they spar near the water, the pale man with the deathly pale hands would have most certainly drowned, and Tobirama knew deep down that it was his fault his brother cried today.

Tobirama saw a menace, a creature whose own family avoided it if they could, and had Tobirama not dragged his tired brother to the river, the madman would have died as he lived – alone.

“Shh,” hiccuped Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage, leader of the Hidden Leaf, the most powerful man on their continent, a purported god amongst mortals. “Sleep now,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I'm here, Madara... I'm here.”

Two thousand miles from Uzushiogakure stood Konohagakure. On the evening it rained in Uzushio, the night was clear and cool in Konoha. In Uzushio, a woman looked out out into the sea, while in Konoha, one man stared at his sobbing brother while a dying creature barked and screamed as if dogs were eating him alive.

Between the two lands, there was only one constant. It stood sentinel as rain froze into ice and ghosts chased the living. It stood, as it always had, just a hair's breadth away. They called it Death, but it was, like everything else, a lesson for the living.

* * *


	2. Lineage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Hashirama's dreams, he slept beneath a cascade of rich, black hair. He drowned in pools of blood, a spinning kaleidoscope imprinted into his soul. The creature was his friend, because the reality was not. The reality slept in his chambers, tucked underneath blankets of fur and wool. The reality hated Hashirama as much as Hashirama loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exposition chapters are the WORST for me, so thank you for bearing with me (it's the last one, promise!). This chapter is broken into perspectives of all of the major characters except Touka and Madara. Madara will be the last to fully join the story as his role becomes critical much later in the story. Thank you for reading, and please remember to leave a review! :'>

For Tobirama, warring was a part of life. Cold, calculated annihilation of his enemies barely registered as cruelty in his head. Death was inevitable in their world, and for Tobirama, killing was a quick and efficient way of stalling things long enough for his brother to strategize their way to victory. It came as naturally as walking and speaking. Killing Uchiha _especially_ came naturally to Tobirama.

“But Nii-sama changed that,” his cousin, Touka, would remind him.

Hashirama, the only person who could even _remotely_ stir the penchant for cruelty living in Tobirama's chest, would confirm their cousin's assertions because Hashirama _had_ changed things. He'd ended a feud that could have carried on ten more years and cost a few thousand more lives. He'd built a village in a grassy crater in the middle of Fire Country, a crater that had existed longer than the Senju clan. Hashirama built homes and fostered bonds whereas their father once sacrificed one son after another in the name of war. Hashirama opened schools and helped arrange marriages between rival clans to establish peace and prosperity. In an era of strife, Tobirama's brother had changed their entire fate.

Few things could phase Tobirama into committing acts of cruelty, but knowing his brother was in danger was the first and foremost. A memory replayed in Tobirama's head, ingrained deep in his psyche.

“Leave him be,” Touka had whispered one early morning years ago, “it's only fair.” She'd found Tobirama the day he'd arrived to the Senju compound one day earlier than expected.

That day, when the sun had barely risen in the horizon, something crackled in the air like invisible lightning. Tobirama had quietly slipped into the house shared between himself, his brother, and four of their cousins. After weeks of patrolling their northwestern borders and negotiating trade deals with Takigakure, Tobirama had been heavy with fatigue and homesickness. He'd missed his brother's home-cooked meals and the warmth of the elders' soothing words. He'd missed training with his cousins, teaching the younger children, and studying what the world had to offer. Hashirama had changed their fate. Never in Tobirama's life did he think he'd grow to love studying nature and desire stability within in own life. Butsuma Senju had taught his children many things, but pushing for peace was not one of them.

Tobirama had once believed war was the only thing in their life that had meaning, but Hashirama had shown him something different. He'd shown Tobirama that war was taboo, that killing should only be committed out of necessity, not because of instinct. Hashirama had promised the people of Fire Country that their lives would be different. Where there used to be daily skirmishes and public executions, Hashirama had promised to encourage budding artists and scientists. It had all seemed like the perfect lie until Hashirama had inspired Tobirama to find his own personal happiness. Many of their clansmen had become builders and engineers, but Tobirama found solace in books and research. Tobirama was a thinker, and he would never have believed it without Hashirama's prodding.

That day, when dawn had barely broken across the sky, Tobirama had ached for the comfort of his cousins' stories and his brother's laughter. He'd missed his family – his home.

That day, Tobirama had stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the familiar sobs of his elder brother float through the walls of their shared home. Curved blade unsheathed, Tobirama had slowly crept towards his brother's chambers. Rage had thrummed in his chest, pain mixed with hatred bubbling in his throat as he'd thought about the creature that invoked such grief from his brother. Who would dare? And against the Hokage? The god of shinobi? Tobirama's brother, his most precious person?

One slit of the rice paper screen was all it had taken to transform Tobirama's rage into shock.

He hadn't noticed how long he stood gawking at the scene and memorizing the words that drifted from his brother's mouth until Touka had taken his hand and gently lead him away from Hashirama's chambers. He remembered his cousin pushing sake into his hand as the sun finally rose in the east.

“Why,” Tobirama had asked, even though he knew _perfectly_ well why.

“Because Madara doesn't know.” Touka had been deathly pale and exhausted, unlike the warrior he fought with on the battlefield. “He invites them over when he doesn't think we're home, and he... He does what he does. But Madara doesn't know – _technically_ , we don't know either.”

“But we're shinobi – how could we _not_ know?” Tobirama had whimpered as if he was sitting on trial in front of his mother, a woman who'd been dead since she'd birthed her fourth son.

“I've wondered myself,” Touka had answered honestly. “Maybe he wants us to know without having to say it himself.”

The conversation hadn't ended there, but after Touka's admission, Tobirama only remembered bits and pieces. They'd continued drinking their sake, and eventually their cousins gathered them for breakfast. It had been a beautiful day with beautiful little critters idling about the compound's gardens, while Tobirama dwelt on the image of a specific creature and his brother. When Hashirama had finally emerged from his chambers, an easy smile was perched his lips, his hair braided and hanging over his right shoulder, as if everything Tobirama had witnessed had been a nightmare. Hashirama hadn't known Tobirama was standing outside of his room, and Tobirama hadn't told him. The morning had passed by as any other morning before, but something had changed in Tobirama, and no one knew – no one but his Touka.

“What is it?” Hashirama had asked him when they were finally alone.

Tobirama had stared deeply into his brother's dark brown eyes and lied. “Nothing.”

Hashirama had accepted it the way he did everything else – with a smile. “Well, don't let that frown stay for too long.” Tobirama had watched as Hashirama's calloused hand reached over and ruffled his thick, white hair. “Can't have my handsome little brother looking like a sour peach all day. The elders will think I'm not feeding you,” Hashirama had teased gently.

That day, Tobirama had cracked a small smile. Hashirama had accepted that smile and drifted away with the others.

That day, Tobirama had watched as Touka left with them, throwing him one final look, reminding him that Hashirama had never said _anything_ , and if their god of shinobi didn't _say_ it existed, then it didn't exist.

Years later, Tobirama knew better.

* * *

“Madara is sick.” Hashirama's breath hitched and he wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “We can't leave him alone like this. He needs someone to look after him.”

“We made our peace, Anija.” Tobirama reminded him. “It's not our fault his family doesn't want him around.”

Hashirama was on his feet, shaking with something much deeper, much rawer than rage. “He's a pariah, Tobirama! They think he stole his brother's eyes! He didn't, god damn it, I know he didn't!”

“Just how much do you really know about what he's done behind closed doors?” Tobirama challenged. “Because I'm curious to know why an entire clan would willfully abandon their own leader to consumption after having _just_ having removed him from power.”

Tobirama internally seethed at the madman who hacked up blood some days and whispered to shadows on others. Madara lived alone on the plains, in a hut far removed from the rest of the budding village, even farther from the section of the village given to his clan members. Something had broken inside of Madara Uchiha after Izuna Uchiha's death, but Tobirama hadn't cared one bit when the younger Uchiha had died, and he didn't intend to start caring now. All he knew was that Madara was both insane and sick with disease, and that both the Uchiha and other clans alike had no intention to prolong his life. A man who'd take his own brother's eyes to cure the blindness that came with the Uchiha birthright was a man who deserved to die alone. Tobirama had no compassion for the Uchiha clan to begin with, but Madara – Madara was a curse.

“Izuna _gave_ his eyes to Madara!” Hashirama's voice thundered across the room. “He _haunts_ him, Tobirama. Don't you get it? Do you think I'd be able to keep living if anything happened to you? If I couldn't protect you? How could you _ever_ think Madara would do something like that! You saw the scratches around his eyes. He's trying to _claw_ them out, not use them to hurt anyone!” His panicked breathing devolved into hitched sobs, and Tobirama hated deeply, he hated _so_ deeply that he wished he could tear Madara's head from his spine and punt it into the sky.

“He hates himself,” Hashirama hiccuped, tears painting his gaunt face. “Oh gods, he hates himself.” He closed his eyes and pressed the bottom of his palms against the lids. “I should have let him have it. I could have fixed this. He – he wanted to _help_ people, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen, and now he's _dying._ ”

Hashirama fell to his knees and sobbed as if one of their fellow Senju had been the one dying of consumption, as if they'd been excommunicated from the clan and exiled to hut in the plains. Tobirama turned around and left. He walked out of their shared compound, away from the Uchiha who slumbered just two rooms away. A memory scratched at his eyes, and he furiously shook his head, refusing to let his mind wander back to that early morning four years ago.

But it wandered, and when it did, Tobirama felt the desire to commit harm for the sake of committing harm. War was taboo and killing was only acceptable when necessary, and _this,_ this felt necessary. His fingers subconsciously fluttered over the curved knife tucked within the folds of his tunic. He remembered, remembered the sounds of his brother sobbing, the urge to kill the thing that made his brother cry, the slit in the rice paper screen, the image of his brother crying into a man's inky black hair, a man his brother called _Madara_ , a man who was _not_ Madara, a man that took his brother like he'd been some lowly whore and not the god of shinobi, a man who was not Madara but one Tobirama's brother _pretended_ was Madara.

Tobirama breathed heavily as he walked into the forest bordering the compound. He flexed his fingers, and counted the trees in front of him, anything to quell the killing intent that threatened to burst from his chest and swallow him whole.

Men like the one he encountered in his brother's chambers had appeared again and again. They continued to appear when Hashirama thought no one was watching, but Tobirama tracked the whores, tracked them back to the budding red light district on the edge of the forest where creatures of all looks and genders meandered around their encampment, waiting until night fell. Tobirama eyed the ones with black hair and skin as pale as a ghost's, the ones who took a piece of his brother's soul every time he went to them.

Night was when his brother took a pale hand and led the whores back to their home, deep into the forest, or by the river. Night was when his brother called whores _Madara_ and laid down beneath a cascade of black hair and let the whores do as they pleased.

Tobirama wished he could slaughter the entire encampment before beheading Madara publicly. He'd dreamt of it enough times to spell out the when, the where, and even the colors of the robe he would wear when he finally ended the demon haunting his brother's soul.

But Tobirama knew – he'd known then, and he knew now, knew forever that if anyone touched Madara, his brother would cease being his brother.

Tobirama tracked the whores, learned their movements, learned his _brother's_ movements, always walked away when his brother first called the creature Madara while holding its face in his hands, and came back an hour later to see his brother pass a few coins to the departing substitute while naked and bruised, as if _he_ were the prostitute and not the thing that walked away. Then, Hashirama would cry alone.

His brother, the god of shinobi.

Tobirama kept walking deeper into the forest, away from his brother, away from their home, away from the creature that slumbered in his brother's room, the madman who'd made a fool of his older brother, _Madara Uchiha_.

Sometimes, Tobirama wished his blade had cut the elder Uchiha instead of the younger. At least then, he could have pretended all was right with their world.

* * *

She awoke with her mother's name on her lips.

Breaking dawn bathed her in blood red light. The early morning did little to warm her cold skin. Dressed in nothing but a tunic and trousers, Mito lay practically bare to the elements. The night had drained her russet colored skin of any energy, leaving her gaunt and almost lifeless. Her hair lay loose and flat, fanned around her head like a bloody halo.

Ever since her childhood, Mito found peace in floating in water, whether it be shallow pools in a river, or the edges of of a whirling tide. Her eyes would often meet the glaring sun, but sometimes, she floated with the stars. Today, Mito peered at a network of railings above the engawa she slept on. Wood interconnected with steel beams that sloped downwards, providing a barrier of protection against elements that Mito had embraced the night before. The sun existed, but it wasn't a part of her. The stars hid the night before, drowned by the hail and rain. She floated, but not in the water.

Mito blinked, internally snapping at the banshees to clear from her head as she felt the tell-tale signs of a figure approaching her body. “Good morning, Princess,” Mito heard the old woman say. She watched silently as her grandmother carried her clothing into her childhood room, the same room she refused to sleep inside the night before.

“Do my sisters know?” Mito called hoarsely.

“You don't unlearn manners in the army, Princess. It would behoove you to remember that.” Mito didn't answer the old crone. Instead, she picked herself up off the floor and trudged into her old room. “The earth-”

“-will understand,” Mito interrupted. Her unmade hair fell below her hips. Over six feet tall, Mito towered over her grandmother, but only because the old woman's spine had bent and clenched over the years, forming a visible hump on her back. Though small and slow, the ninety-year old woman ambled about as if her crooked spine was a badge of honor and not a testament of time.

“The earth is ashamed you haven't learned how to mind your steps yet,” the old woman continued, ignoring Mito's response. “A woman's gait is soft, unassuming. The only time her presence is known is when she _wants_ to be known. Silence your presence as much as you silence your mouth, and watch where it takes you, Princess.”

“Do my sisters know, Grandmother?” Mito hissed, a feverish croak escaping her lips before she coughed into her fist. The banshees swam fervently in her mind's fog, clawing at her skull and threatening to spill through her nose and mouth.

The old woman lay gold bangles on top of a silk white robe. “No.”

“Why not?”

“They don't matter,” the old woman answered drily.

“But they had a purpose.”

The old woman turned to Mito and slowly lifted her head until she and Mito were eye to eye. “And what purpose did they have, Princess?”

When Mito had been nine years old, her mother and father held a wedding on the beach near a low cliff. Mito's fourth sister had been sixteen, wrapped in pale blue silk and dark gold brocade. Her arms had been weighed down with ruby and emerald bangles, and the tell-tale vermillion of their island streaked across her forehead and down her cheeks. Mito remembered three red buns, each with paper seals pinned into thick hair by chopsticks and needles. Each seal had been a different treasure. The greatest treasure, however, had lain on her sister's forehead. Her father had performed the ritual in public that day. The Yin seal had been burned into her sister's forehead at dawn, and hours later, she had gotten married. She'd left the island the very next day.

“They had a purpose,” Mito repeated, ignoring her Grandmother’s question. “Why aren't they here?”

The old woman huffed. “You don't need them to escort you to Fire Vountry.” The only woman's wrinkled lips curved into a smile. “Soldiers of the _clan head_ will escort you to your husband.”

Mito sighed. “Why punish them like that?”

“So they will learn,” her grandmother answered without missing a beat. “The war between Senju and Uchiha is over. Peace is almost here, and when it is, the Senju will rule. If the soldiers don't learn now that they no longer have the power to choose their commander, then the Senju will slaughter them in their sleep. No seal will save them from the thorns of their godking.” The banshees in her head cackled with laughter while Mito's shoulders went slack. She meekly nodded to the old woman who'd returned to arranging the robes and jewels. “The seal masters will be here in the afternoon to mask your skin. By then, the soldiers will be ready to take you to Fire Country.”

Mito thought about all the people she hadn't said goodbye to, the people she'd never see again when she became the wife of the Hokage.

Her grandmother sighed, taking one of her limp hands and putting it on top of the silk and gold resting on her bed. “Such is the life of a queen who has to protect her people. You're duty-bound, Mito. Had this been any other era, it would have been one of your sisters or cousins, but there are none left. They will know if you've birthed before. The war wounds, we can hide – but we can't hide a woman who already belongs to someone else.”

When Mito didn't speak, her grandmother propped up her chin and looked deeply into her large, brown eyes. “Smile, Princess, you're to be married – you have a purpose now.”

* * *

Hashirama awoke with Madara's name on his lips.

He'd dropped into a restless sleep in the guest chambers farthest from his own. He'd tended to the older man's fever in his chambers, draped blankets his grandmother had sewn for him over his beloved. He'd held Madara's hand while counting his heartbeats. Before he'd left, Hashirama placed a single, budding flower next to the sleeping man's pillow.

Hashirama choked back the sobs in his throat.

He rolled over to his side and curled away from the soft light. In his dreams, there lived a being with black hair and red eyes. This creature, with its bountiful locks and haunting gaze, embraced Hashirama nightly. It whispered poems into Hashirama's ears, and held Hashirama so tightly that he thought its love alone could protect them from the world. As the years passed, Hashirama's dreams evolved with his experiences. With strife, death, and all the other pains and suffering attached to an existence spent at war, Hashirama's dreams had no choice but to transform with him. He'd been birthed into a world where everyone's final destination was in the arms of Death – through violence.

Death itself was inevitable, but choices were for the privileged. Hashirama had the misfortune of being born into a world where men and beasts alike weren't privileged enough to choose the how and the when of their deaths.

There wasn't a choice when Tobirama told their father about Hashirama's friendship with the Uchiha. That moment had also helped Hashirama realize that no one, not even his little brother, was trustworthy enough to keep all of his secrets.

There wasn't a choice when Madara's brother died beneath Tobirama's blade. In that moment, Hashirama put all of his faith in the gods. He'd prayed for days at the Senju shrines, prayed that Izuna would live so that Madara wouldn't suffer – but Hashirama had failed. In that moment, he'd learned that some gods just couldn't be trusted, and that the only being who could make his prayers come true was himself.

But there was a choice when the foundation for the creature in Hashirama's dreams asked for Death in in exchange for peace. Death was inevitable, Hashirama had always known, but until that moment, he'd never _truly_ understood what free will was. Madara had asked him to choose between himself and his little brother. Never in one million worlds would he have killed Madara, but in those same worlds, he'd never raise a hand against his little brother.

But it had been a choice, and so Hashirama had chosen.

The creature had started visiting Hashirama's dreams when he was barely fourteen, but even then, when Hashirama had known nothing, he'd embraced the creature as if it was his only friend and solace in the world. As Hashirama had grown older and his hands bloodier, he'd taken to laying beneath his beloved monster. He let it love him, let it _make_ love to him, let it remind him that in their cruel, dark world, their love was the only thing that kept them alive. Even after Death claimed them both, Hashirama still believed that their love was the very thing that would bring them back.

In Hashirama's dreams, he slept beneath a cascade of rich, black hair. He drowned in pools of blood, a spinning kaleidoscope imprinted into his soul. The creature was his friend, because the reality was not. The reality slept in his chambers, tucked underneath blankets of fur and wool. The reality hated Hashirama as much as Hashirama loved him.

Hashirama wiped the tears from his eyes when he heard footsteps approach the sliding door. “Hashi-nii,” he heard his cousin Hiroki from behind the paper screen. “Madara-sama is awake.”

“I'll be there in a few minutes,” he called hoarsely, rising from the bedroll. He took deep, even breaths, willing the tremors in his chest to cease.

Hiroki was uncharacteristically silent for several seconds. “He says he doesn't wish to see you,” the little boy said helplessly from behind the paper screens.

Hashirama froze. “What do you mean?”

“He asked to see Tobi-nii... so Touka-chan got Tobi-nii.”

Hashirama slid the door open so fast, the paper ripped from their corners and fluttered limply to the wooden floor. “Why?” He gritted through his teeth.

“Because he asked,” Touka answered for Hiroki, emerging from around the bend. Her armor shined in the afternoon light, not a single hair out of place. “He's a grown man, Nii-sama... or have you forgotten?”

“You should have asked me,” he almost wailed. “Tobirama will-”

“He'll what?” Touka cut in. “Kill him? In your house? On your bed?” Hashirama's breath hitched in his throat as Touka continued. “Your brother is your second-in-command, and Madara is a guest. He couldn't kill him even if he tried. You wouldn't allow it, and he'd never go against your word – not while you're still alive.”

Hashirama swallowed the fear in his throat before narrowing his eyes. “Where are they now?”

“In the garden,” Touka clipped, walking away. “Don't worry – the whole clan is eavesdropping.”

Hashirama followed, both enraged and afraid of what he'd find. The creature of his dreams clawed at his brain, filtering memories that didn't exist in and out of his vision as he followed his cousins to their compound's outer garden.

* * *

Mito closed her eyes and let the banshees take over as the seal masters cleaned every mark and wrinkle on her body that might give away her age or her previous life. They were still there, of course, but now there was a thin film of chakra over the grooves and folds the seal masters deemed inappropriate on a princess. Faded scars blended seamlessly into skin the color of amber. Cuts and mottled skin came away smooth and pristine. When cold fingers ghosted over the dark skin of her vagina, Mito pursed her lips and bit back a scream as the seal masters restored her hymen.

The only thing they left untouched was the lavender Yin seal on her forehead. She'd gotten hers when she was in the army, after learning how to first control her chakra. By the time the seal masters were done polishing her body, the creatures in Mito's head were singing her folk songs from her childhood.

The maidservants trickled in when the seal masters' hands left her naked body. Mito didn't open her eyes when gentle hands lifted her head and began wrapping her hair in buns customary for Uzumaki women. More hands pulled her gently to her feet after the buns were completed. Mito's head lolled to the side as her arms were spread out and her legs maneuvered. The maids dressed her in cotton underclothes smelling of fresh lilies. She felt silk brush against her skin as the first layer of her robe was fastened with cords of muslin. The second layer was heavier, and when Mito's fingers brushed over the fabric, she realized the brocade was encrusted with jewels and sequins.

Once the robes were tied with a sash, she felt hands back in her hair, tightening the bulbs and adjusting the bangs framing her face. Needles pierced the red buds, leaving paper seals hanging adjacent to her face. She bowed her head when a heavy, gold comb came down on her skull . Her arms were still outstretched and she was still standing, but now a heavy crown sat on heavy shoulders, and Mito remained still as the rage in her heart grew stronger and stronger while the banshees in her head laughed louder and louder.

“Come, Princess,” Mito heard one of the maidservants say. Mito nodded, dropping her arms, and finally opening her eyes. The mirror staring back at her told her that the woman in the mirror was the last princess of the Uzumaki clan. She would soon be the wife of the Hokage, the god of shinobi. Gone were pieces of her armor, her sword, the scrolls she carried so she could summon her familiars, and the dark shadows underneath her eyes that marked sleepless nights and a head full of banshees.

Instead, in front of the mirror stood a tall woman with honey brown skin and bright red hair, a woman with an ample chest and full hips, soon to be someone's wife, someone's mother, a woman, not a soldier. Mito stared at her reflection as a maidservant lifted one foot and slipped on an embroidered shoe. Then came the other shoe, then a shawl of pale lavender and gold draped over her shoulders, and finally, the bangles that belonged to her grandmother, bangles that Mito never saw her mother wear, bangles that would have been buried with the old woman had Mito not had a purpose. They were so heavy, Mito thought she would collapse.

“She's ready,” called a soft voice.

When Ashina Uzumaki entered his grand-niece's chambers, he gasped before breaking into a fit of laughter. The maidservants looked down while Mito continued to gaze at the woman in the mirror.

“Had I known you'd look like this, I'd have asked for an alliance sooner,” he chuckled.

But the alliance was never his to recommend, and Mito didn't find it in herself to correct him. She stared at the creature in the mirror, the beautiful creature that would soon become a god's confidante.

One of the servants pattered into Mito's chambers and bowed deeply. “The escort is here, Ashina-sama,” the child whispered before quietly exiting the room.

“Well then, Princess?”

Hunger pangs ached in her throat, but instead of crying for help, Mito turned away from the mirror and left.

* * *

He'd fallen in love with Madara the day they met. He'd created his pale imitation when he was old enough to realize dreams could be hidden beneath a veil, but before there was a creature in Hashirama's dreams and substitutes that played its role, there had been Madara.

When they'd skipped stones, Hashirama had often wondered what life would be like if they could run away together. Could they hold hands? Could Madara bring his brother like he intended to bring his own? Could they live on a giant plain free of war and famine, and spend the rest of their lives skipping stones and fishing for eel? Could they be happy, so happy that they'd never have to cry ever again?

Hashirama had loved Madara when his father had given him the directive to lead his own Senju troops into battle, when the mantle of clan head began drilling into his skull, when Butsuma and the clan elders found out that Hashirama could raise forests with his hands.

One day, after destroying an entire camp full of Uchiha soldiers and civilians, Hashirama had realized running away was no longer the answer. He'd still loved Madara, but now he wanted to _build_ with Madara. Hashirama's fingers could birth whole forests, so Hashirama had dreamed of a compound that could hold both of their clans. The more Hashirama aged, the more he'd realized his desire for a family, children, everything a man could possibly want in his life – and Hashirama wanted that with Madara.

It was only when Hashirama had turned fifteen that he realized that no one would grant him his desire. Marriage was a duty Hashirama had always known he'd have to fulfill, but his fantasies had fooled him into thinking that there was some semblance of hope attached to them. At fifteen, he'd been told he was engaged to a girl from River Country. At sixteen, that girl had died when the wars destroyed her ancestral city and took her life with them.

And yet, Hashirama had loved Madara. While the poisonous pollen of his giant, pink oleanders bathed the small city in River Country, Hashirama had loved Madara. He had loved Madara as his vines choked the life from his once and future father-in-law. He had loved Madara while watching his fiance rattle her final breath underneath a blanket of oleander petals. Hashirama had loved Madara even as he killed, even when his father gave the order to eliminate the River Country traitors, even when his fiance and future father-in-law had become enemies.

Hashirama had still loved Madara, even as the wars had raged. Hashirama had raged with them. Death was inevitable, but how and when were never a choice, and that vexed Hashirama. He'd loved Madara, but no one would allow him to build a home and family with Madara, much less let him die with Madara. For many years, Hashirama loved as dearly as he died inside.

When the war between the clans finally dwindled and Death appeared once again, Hashirama knew what he had to do. For once, he'd been given a choice for the how and the when, and Hashirama knew that honor awaited him in the Pure Place. Madara had given him a choice between himself and his little brother, and Hashirama had thanked all of his ancestors – but mostly, he'd thanked Madara. Madara had given him a chance to die on his own terms, and die he would have had Madara not gone back on his word.

“Have some shame, Madara,” Hashirama heard his brother say as he, Touka, and Hiroki entered the garden. Hashirama gasped when he saw Madara hunched over a makeshift cane, face as pale as a ghost, blood dripping from his eyes.

“You'd shame me by bringing me here?” Madara rasped. Hashirama died. He died inside wondering how much of this could have been avoided if he'd simply agreed to Madara's demands to be the next leader, if he'd forgone his insecurities and asked Madara to marry him when they first agreed on peace, if he hadn't been such a coward while the Uchiha exiled their leader, if he'd told his brother 'no' before he and the Senju elders sent notice to the islanders for their princess.

He died wondering how much of this could have been avoided had Madara not gone back on his word the day he'd given Hashirama a choice.

“I wanted you to drown,” Tobirama countered blithely, “but Anija wouldn't have that. He brought you to our home, Madara. If there's someone you want to pick a fight with, then pick it with _him_.”

With that, Tobirama stalked away, well aware that Hashirama and their cousins had arrived while the rest of the Senju watched keenly from their perches on tall trees and through their animal familiars. Hashirama cleared his throat while Madara turned a deadly eye towards him, Sharingan spinning menacingly. Blood steadily streamed from the sockets and down his gaunt face. Hashirama's heart caught itself in his throat, and he wished nothing more than to embrace the man and bury his face in his black hair.

“I brought you here,” he began shakily. “You're hurt, Madara – I want to help you. Please, let me help you.”

“I think you've helped enough,” Madara hissed. “Don't you think you've helped enough, _Hokage-sama?_ ”

Hashirama flinched, anguish clawing at his throat. “Madara, _please_. We can forget the river... but we can't forget our promise. We promised, remember? We promised to protect this village _together!_ ”

Madara leered, breathing heavily. His Sharingan spun faster, so fast that Hashirama thought his _own_ eyes would start bleeding if Madara didn't stop glaring into his soul. He swallowed the guilt in his throat and stared helplessly.

But then Madara stopped.

The light died in Madara's eyes. Madara was no longer looking at him. Touka and Hiroki had edged away the moment Tobirama had departed, now watching keenly from the side, but Madara looked past Hashirama, as if there was someone right behind him. None of his clan members had dared to reveal their presence, so who was Madara looking at? Who stole the light from his eyes in Hashirama's presence, the Hokage of Konohagakure, the god of shinobi?

Hashirama whipped around, fury crackling on his skin, but saw nothing. Turning back to Madara, he watched as the man straightened his spine and tossed his makeshift cane to the side.

“I'll be going now,” the man known as Madara Uchiha enunciated lifelessly, all traces of anger gone from his face, his Sharingan frozen.

“B-but, your eyes!” Hashirama stammered.

“I'll be going now,” Madara repeated, and before Hashirama could reach out, he flickered away, away from the Senju compound, away from Hashirama's life.

The rage in Hashirama's chest swelled. Pink oleanders bloomed in his vicinity, and the Senju clan dispersed as their clan head sobbed pitifully.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hashirama's a crackhead, but we knew this


	3. Shattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had all seemed so hopeless before Madara.

In the land of fire, there was no shortage of life and death.

Centuries of inbreeding helped to identify those who were worthy of reproducing within their respective clans. With carefully bred children came better, more efficient soldiers. With efficiency came mass murder in the form of burnt flesh and floating corpses. Those who could protect, protected in secret. Those who could run, ran far, far away. Those who couldn't afford these luxuries died as they lived – hopeless.

For Hashirama Senju, the fields and rivers of his childhood were haunted. Every body of water was filled with corpses of fallen friends and family members. Every field had bones and flesh decomposing beneath the soil, birthing fruits filled with teeth of the deceased. Every moment spent on the the ground was a reminder of those who'd died, those who would die after Hashirama had perished, and those who were dying while Hashirama walked the muddy path that led to his beloved's hut.

And yet, for a continent notorious for its grudges, friendships ran just as deeply as conflict. Bonds were made of iron, but those bonds had to be suitable in the eyes of the clan heads, _reasonable_ while they'd been at war. As a child, Hashirama had dreamed of uniting the clans across the country, and while that dream had came true, his first dream did not. In the land of fire, war and friendships were law, but love – love was something different.

Hashirama remembered every last friend, cousin, and brother that had perished beneath a sword. He remembered fires that took out whole compounds, soldiers who were drowned with their families. He remembered public executions that drew hundreds of people from different clans across the continent, a land of war and blood and not at all human. Hashirama knew every way his land of fire used to murder its people. He knew because he'd carried out some of those murders himself. When powerless against his own father, Hashirama had witnessed heads on pikes and limbs decomposing under leaves. He'd watched women get flayed alive while their children died in suits of armor. Hashirama knew what his land was capable of, and he knew that no matter what happened to his love – Fire Country could never go back to what it was.

It had all seemed so hopeless before Madara.

The moment Madara had walked into his life, he'd known that he could change it all – if only there was someone who believed in him. The blood, deaths, destruction, he'd known right then and there that despite his father's iron will and his clan's refusal to make peace with the Uchiha, there was a kindling of hope. That hope had come in the form of an oleander that bloomed at his feet one cold, winter night when he was barely thirteen. He'd been crying about his beloved Madara, the boy he so desperately loved and wanted to run away with, off into the plains and away from all the bloodshed. That single flower had then become a forest, and that forest then became Konoha.

Even after his botched engagement and his execution of the River Country nobility, Hashirama had known there was a silver lining. After all the blood, the friendships, and his own father's violent death at the hands of the Uchiha – Hashirama had, had faith. He'd always have faith. As long as there was Madara, then there was hope for everything. Madara had been the first to listen to his sobs and agree that something had to change. Madara was the one who'd believed in Hashirama first, and thus became his first dream, his companion, the one he'd once wished desperately to run away with. Madara hadn't looked at him with pity in his eyes when he cried. Madara had believed in him. Madara had believed in him – and now Hashirama was Hokage.

Hashirama knocked on the door of the small hut.

Madara opened the door, but slipped out of sight before Hashirama could catch a glimpse of his face. Hashirama didn't hesitate as he went inside. If this was to be their life, then he'd get used to the heavy shadows and cold rooms starting tonight. If he didn't want to see Madara floating in the river that killed eighteen of his cousins and seven of his childhood friends, then he'd condition himself to exist in the darkness. He'd bathed in enough blood to know that a little chill and some dim lighting was more boon than punishment. All of his dreams except his first dream had come true, and tonight, he would make his first dream his last.

He was doing it for love, after all.

“I can see Izuna in the shadows,” Madara muttered before Hashirama could open his mouth. His voice was scratchy with phlegm and fatigue. He was draped in an old, blue smock that came to his knees, paired with filthy yellow trousers that were tightened around his waist with string. Hashirama could pick out bony elbows and trembling knees. The air was moldy and stank of body odor and blood. He didn't have to touch Madara's hair to know that it was matted with grease and uncombed. That was how it had been when Hashirama had carried him out of the water – filthy and unkempt, so unlike the man he'd loved for so long.

“He's alive, Hashirama. My brother... he's alive,” Madara continued softly. Hashirama quietly walked over to where Madara was standing and looked into a dusty little corner. It was away from the hut's only window and source of light, as the moonlight shone brightly over the plains. “He wants me to come home... I would have gone if it wasn't for you.”

Hashirama expected a sword, maybe a punch, but certainly not eerie silence after the accusatory words. “I couldn't let you die,” he replied honestly.

Madara's eyes remained fixed on the dark shadows. “I was going home, and my brother was guiding me there.”

“I wanted to talk to you, Madara,” Hashirama began, scratching Izuna from their story, remembering that he came with a purpose, that tonight he wasn't Hokage, but simply a man who sought to make his first dream come true.

“My brother came to take me home... and you wouldn't let him.”

“ _Is this what you intend to bring him home,”_ whispered his father's memory, a man who was dead but not _truly_ dead, a man whose memory haunted Hashirama's soul. Hashirama imagined what his brother and cousins would say when he came home with a betrothal bracelet around his wrist, his hair tied back in a low ponytail like the other married men of his clan.

“ _And break the contract your brother prepared for our allies – just so you can fulfill your selfish desires?”_ It wasn't the memory of Butsuma's anger that left an acrid taste in Hashirama's mouth, but the truth in his words. Hashirama would be breaking one promise to fulfill another.

“Madara, I-”

“I have four little brothers,” Madara said heavily. “I love them very, very much. I want to see them again, Hashirama. Why didn't you let me?”

Hashirama words froze in his throat, and he heard his father laugh in his memories, laugh all the way to Hell since Butsuma had only agreed to the engagement with River Country _after_ Hashirama had told him that he'd wanted to marry Madara, had ordered Hashirama to kill his future father-in-law and fiance instead of ordering one of his cousins because Hashirama had needed to learn a lesson about war and politics, and so he'd learned.

“Madara, you brothers ar-”

“Don't you see how sad Izuna is without me?” Madara continued, pointing at the shadows in the empty corner of the hut. “He came to _help_ me.”

“I'm here to help you too,” Hashirama told him gently. “I'm your friend, Madara. I'll always be here to help you.”

“I miss my brothers, Hashirama.”

Hashirama wondered if Madara felt love in his heart for him, love that wasn't an iron bond reserved for brothers and friends, but love that could dissect a man's soul and reduce him to ashes.

“I love my brothers, Hashirama. I love them more than the village we've created. Isn't that sad?”

“Imagine how many siblings we've saved by making peace, Madara,” Hashirama reminded him, voice thick with emotion. “Don't you think Izuna would be proud?”

“... No.”

Hashirama stilled. “No?”

“No,” Madara repeated. “Izuna knows we're not safe – our people will never be safe in your hands.” Madara breathed in deeply, and a heavy wheeze filtered through the air, reminding Hashirama of how much of the air in the hut was actually death and rot. “He wants me to continue fighting,” Madara crooned hoarsely.

“No, he doesn't,” Hashirama countered, knowing Madara was already over the edge, that even though he hadn't physically drowned in the river he'd thrown himself into, his soul had already descended into the underworld where his brothers, father, and mother now lived. The man Hashirama stood next to paled in comparison to the creature he loved so dearly.

“... What would you do if I killed Tobirama?”

“I wouldn't let you,” Hashirama snapped. He gasped at the sudden outburst, covering his mouth with shaking hands.

“I'll kill him,” Madara growled, and it was a promise. Hashirama remembered the promises he planned to forgo tonight when he knocked on Madara's door, the betrothal to the Uzumaki he planned to give up for him, the leadership he planned to hand to Tobirama so that they could marry and live in the darkness for all of eternity if it meant Madara was safe and sound and Hashirama's.

And yet, Madara had gone back on his word once. Maybe in a different world, Hashirama could believe this new bluff, but tonight, there was a chill in the air that even Hashirama couldn't deny. He could birth forests from his lips and bathe a battlefield in poisonous pollen, but he couldn't trust Madara, not the way he was at the moment. A promise was a promise, and once, long ago, Madara had promised peace in exchange for Hashirama's life, and Hashirama had chosen to give it to him.

Rage bubbled in his chest and he sighed heavily. “I won't let you,” Hashirama promised his beloved, a man who touched the edges of sanity. “We've worked too hard to throw it all away now. You asked me to choose that day, and I choose to sacrifice myself. I let you go back on your word because you told me you wanted to see if I had honor and guts. I have them both, Madara. I have them, and I have my family, and I-” Hashirama swallowed the sobs stuck in his throat and ignored the betrothal bracelet in the pocket of his haori. “... I want to help you. We have healers and space for you to live. You don't have to stay here alone anymore.”

Madara remained quiet for several minutes, staring blankly at the shadows in the empty corner of the hut. “You're a fool, Hashirama,” he finally whispered so softly that Hashirama barely heard the words that escaped his mouth. When Madara turned to look at him, his Sharingan-filled gaze went straight to the pocket where Hashirama hid the bracelet. When Madara finally met his panicked gaze, all Hashirama saw was pity.

In that moment, Hashirama knew that Madara knew. Hashirama didn't bother holding back his tears as Madara's Sharingan spun steadily in his eye sockets. They memorized Hashirama's shame, and all Hashirama could do was watch. “... you knew?” Hashirama whispered accusingly.

Madara didn't answer him. Instead, he walked to the hut's moon-lit window and stood still.

“You knew,” Hashirama concluded hollowly.

Madara didn't turn around, and outside, where the plains stretched far and wide, pink oleanders bloomed along the frosty path that led to the small hut.

Hashirama narrowed his gaze at the man he loved. He would have broken the Senju's oath to the Uzumaki if it meant protecting Madara from himself. It didn't matter how much blood had been spilled between their two clans, because now they were one village. Nothing in the past mattered because if Madara could just look at him, they could live the rest of their lives shuttered away in a small house in the Senju compound, far away from the eyes of the rest of the village hidden in the leaves, nothing but the sky and the earth as witnesses to their union.

And perhaps that's what fueled the rage in Hashirama's heart, the same rage that thrummed through generations of Senju, a fire that kept them alive, and hungry, and desiring nothing but destruction of the Uchiha. All this time, Madara had known of Hashirama's love, and he'd never said a damn thing.

“No, Madara,” he said coldly. He flickered to the door, ready to disappear from Madara's life and keep the promise he'd made after Tobirama put the contract in his hands and told him the Princess from Whirlpool had agreed to marry him. “I'm an idealist, but I'm not a fool. I asked you once, friend, what would it take for us to go back to who we were? You gave me your answer, and I accepted it.” He remembered that feeling, the feeling that he would die as he lived – a man in love. “... it was _you_ who went back on your word and stopped me from fulfilling my promise. Remember that.”

And with that, Hashirama walked away, away from Madara's hut, away from Madara's life because Hashirama hated as much as he loved, walked a muddy path lined with pink oleanders, willed his furious heart to be still because Madara had known and he'd never said a single word.

That night, he walked the prostitute over to a banyan tree overlooking hills tended to by the Nara clan. It was far away enough that no one noticed the two figures walking briskly in the cold, winter night. No one saw Hashirama strip himself of his wares and clothes, and then order his paid companion to lay down on top of the exposed roots of the great tree. No one witnessed him bring a stranger's cock to life with his mouth. No one saw him climb on top and push himself down on the stranger's cock, move and shudder with equal parts pain and pleasure, while his body leaked chakra and shame. Hashirama led the creature's hands to his throat and growled for it to hurt him while he pushed himself to climax. Bruises bloomed on his skin and ruptured tissue left blood on the stranger's cock. Harashima cried while he came, Madara's name on his lips.

That night, underneath a clear sky and a bright moon, Hashirama pretended the betrothal necklace lying limp in the pocket of his haori was actually fastened around his wrist. He pretended that the single black bead on the bracelet that crumbled into ash was now streaked across his beloved's cheek, a sign that their union was now valid in the eyes of the Senju ancestors. Hashirama lifted himself off the throbbing cock and got on his hands and knees. He arched his back, let cold fingers grip the back of his neck and break skin while he pretended that the thing that had resumed fucking him was his beloved and not some stranger with yellow teeth and brittle, black hair. Hashirama closed his eyes and imagined a wedding in the great forest, wisteria trees raining petals on the altar while he married his beloved. He dreamed of warmth and unity while his knees and hands dug into old roots, while the stranger pulled on his hair and left deep, bloody scratches on his hips, dreamed of love while the temperature in the field dropped and the stranger filled his belly with semen.

That night, far removed from everyone else, Harashima slipped coins into the prostitute's hand. After he sent the stranger away, he sat naked and alone underneath the great tree. Blood and semen dried on the insides of his thighs, around his mouth, his palms, knees, and his hips. He smelled of sweat that wasn't his own, the acrid taste of the stranger's seed heavy on his tongue. Hashirama imagined he looked much like a wild animal, not something befitting the title of Hokage.

And so he sobbed. He sobbed while semen steadily dripped from his stinging asshole and imprints of large fingers and deep scratches ached on his neck and hips, leaving him exposed and hollow. He ground his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to forget the pity in Madara's eyes. He failed, of course. Madara had caught him in a moment of cowardice. Madara knew Hashirama loved him, and in all their years of friendship, Madara never said a single thing. And Hashirama knew – Hashirama knew deep down that it wasn't because Madara didn't care about him, or because he didn't want peace in their land, but because Madara did not love him.

Madara did not love Hashirama, and perhaps _that_ was what changed their fate.

The winter night thrummed with energy, a cold country on a cold night, and Hashirama sat at its nexus, underneath a banyan tree that was older than his clan, one that saw blood from war, from fucking, from childbirth. A naked man underneath an old tree, a fool masquerading as a creature from fantasies, Hashirama was twenty-five years old and had lived longer than most. He'd lived longer than most, and so he craved finality, a darkness that even the winter night couldn't give him.

He fell asleep against tendrils of old wood, the blood and semen hardening against his skin as proof of his shame. Hashirama suspected that had Tobirama and Touka not slunk in an hour later with blankets and started a small fire underneath the great tree, Death would have surely paid him a visit. Hashirama would have welcomed it too, now that his secret was out.

“ _But is it really secret if the whole world knows?”_ His dead father's words drifted in his memories.

Of course Hashirama knew. He knew that _they_ knew his secret, he knew that they saw him bring his paid companions into his chambers at the compound, knew that they followed him to the rivers, into the forest, underneath trees, anywhere and everywhere Hashirama could pretend that he was loved and wanted by someone who wanted nothing from him.

Death would have been welcome. Instead, Hashirama's head was in his brother's lap while his cousin stoked the fire and held his wrist to count his heartbeats. He knew they knew that he was awake, that he'd woken up the second he'd felt their chakra signatures a mile away, but he remained still and they remained silent. Hashirama kept his eyes closed, didn't utter a word as his brother cried silently and dropped tears onto his cold face. He remained quiet as his cousin poured warm chakra into his wrist and started to mend the fresh wounds that were peppered throughout his body.

In the land of fire, there lived a god who loved a man, and when that man died, so did its god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Hashirama's life would've been easier if he'd just became a florist instead.


	4. Pariah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito tasted ash on her tongue. The rage that sat deep in her chest poked at her organs and seeped into her blood. She thought of her impending marriage, her mother, the volcanoes that slept beneath the sea, all the political alliances that ended up becoming a moot point. She thought about the sky that threatened hail. She thought about Uzushio's frail army that doubled as its navy, the island nation's heavy reliance on protection from others through silver tongues and little girls, her dead mother, the Queen Mother volcano that slept beneath the sea, the rage in her heart that threatened to burst from her chest and paint the beach red with blood. She thought of the wraiths she called her sisters. She thought of Noor and Irya, women who simultaneously did and did not exist. She thought of her island broken and buried deep beneath the whirling tides.

Her lungs burned.

Mito could smell the hail in the air as their boat landed on the beaches of Hot Water. Heavy skies had begun following their boat the moment they left the port of Uzushio three days prior. The banshees in Mito's head told her that the clouds were fat with creatures sporting sharp teeth. They lurked deep within the moisture, steadily creeping down from the heavens, coming to rip her to shreds and eat her alive like they did her mother.

“We'll rest here until dawn,” she heard her lead escort say. Mito kept her eyes trained on the rough terrain of Hot Water Country, a land that met the sea with craggy rocks and a thin strip of beach before descending into great thickets of trees laden with fog visible even in the dead of night. Queen Mother's cousins lived underneath Hot Water. Forests, springs, and low mountains were packed heavily over the old land that now housed a newly formed nation. Hot Water traded Uzushio coffee, fruits, and thick yarn in exchange for seals that kept the more dangerous geysers from annihilating whole towns. Every year, Uzushio sent twelve seal masters, half of them Uzumakis, to do rounds of the thirty-two geysers that were off-limits to the common people. Queen Mother's cousins were just as merciless as she was, and Mito often wondered what would happen if one day her people simply disappeared and left the world to deal with its active volcanoes and restless seas.

“Mito-sama, your meal is ready,” came a soft voice from behind her. Mito recognized it as one of the few children in her party.

“Hmm.” The child took that as a yes and shuffled away. Mito's eyes remained on the dense, motionless forest.

Ashina had given her a party of fourteen escorts as her last gift. Nine of them were Uzumaki seal masters, two were servants, and three were teenagers from Uzushio's army. Her cousin Genki had handed the children to her personally, eyes wracked with shame, steps from crumbling at her feet. She'd known he'd visit her one last time before she departed, but she hadn't expected a trio of fifteen-year olds who barely filled out the heavy iron of Uzushio's armor to be following closely behind him. He'd bowed deeply while the two girls and lone boy mirrored his movements. Shortly after, they'd left his side and carefully flanked hers.

“A gift from Uzushiogakure's army to the future queen of Fire Country,” Genki had said heavily, his eyes unable to meet her own. Instead of staring at her cousin, she'd stared at her clan head, Genki's father, the man who'd no doubt given the order that shamed both Mito and her cousin in the eyes of the rest of the Uzumaki clan.

“Thank you, Cousin,” she'd replied, equally hollow. Before Genki could turn away, Mito pulled him into a hug.

Mito had expected many things, but not tears. Genki's quiet sobs had soaked the fabric of her embroidered shawl while Mito had kept her eyes trained on Ashina.

“You're the whirling tide, Cousin,” Genki mouthed softly into her shoulder, inaudible to the untrained eyes of the child soldiers, but clear as a bell in Mito's ears. “For as long as the tides turn, so will you – so will we.”

She hadn't cried then, but now, as she stared at the forests hidden in the darkness of the fog and bitter cold, tears slid down her cheeks and into the collar of her inner robe. The whirlpools were no where to be found in the land of trees, springs, and Queen Mother's cousins. Her sisters were scattered throughout the world, away from her most of her life, as foreign to her as her to-be-husband. Irya lived in a settlement hidden in a mining village. Noor was with a desert tribe, while Kana and Suzu were in a land bathed perpetually in rain. Kana and Suzu were the ones who'd told her, her mother had died. They'd been the ones to clean the woman's body and hold her funeral while Mito warred. Irya and Noor were myths to Mito, as she'd never seen nor met them in the flesh.

If she had, she didn't remember. They were portraits in her father's house and Yin seals the seal masters took pride in. They weren't people. Instead, they were stories whispered between cousins and aunts Mito had sometimes spied on as a little girl.

“Princess – you must eat and rest,” the leader of the escort clipped, now hovering too close.

“Soon,” she lied.

“Make it sooner,” he griped for the last time before turning on his heels.

“I'll ask the Hokage if I can see them,” she murmured to her dead mother. “I'll introduce myself and tell them about the home they left behind. Then they can teach me. They can teach me how to fulfill my purpose.”

* * *

“I can see glimpses of the future, Hashirama. I see this world still at war, and I see my family no where to be found. I see bones, and blood, and demons wearing human skin. Izuna knew – he knew before I did that the Uchiha would perish. I can't protect them because it's already written, Hashirama. It's in our eyes. Our eyes know the truth.”

* * *

Mito's mother once told her that there wasn't a purpose for her, and Mito had believed her. An illiterate who wouldn't be taught to read and scratch her numbers until she was almost a teenager, Mito had believed. Her mother had told her there were only two options, and she'd chosen the one where she'd never have to explain the banshees. Her mother had led her to a secluded portion of the beach in the dead of night, and she'd pointed at the horizon and told Mito that she had a privilege no other woman in her family did, and Mito had chosen to stay. Mito wouldn't learn that her sisters never had that choice until she was older, but by then, it had been too late. Now her mother was dead, and she didn't know if her two eldest sisters remembered her, and the voices in her head howled with laughter, and Mito wanted to scratch her eyes out and tear at her hair, because why didn't anyone explain to her in the beginning, why, why, why, why, wh-

* * *

“We both led the clan for a reason. I was good at war, but Izuna could reason. Even my father and brothers saw how necessary that balance was. If you live in a time of war, you have War and you have war's little brother, Peace. Izuna was harsh with his reasoning, but for our benefit. He truly believed we could be free, but not with you, Hashirama. Our people believed him, but they didn't believe me, didn't believe that Izuna _gave_ me his eyes, that I didn't steal them, that I loved my brother dearly. When Izuna died, so did their faith in me. We led together for a reason, Hashirama. I was war, but Izuna was Peace. He believed we could be free, but not here – not now.”

* * *

Mito tasted ash on her tongue. The rage that sat deep in her chest poked at her organs and seeped into her blood. She thought of her impending marriage, her mother, the volcanoes that slept beneath the sea, all the political alliances that ended up becoming a moot point. She thought about the sky that threatened hail. She thought about Uzushio's frail army that doubled as its navy, the island nation's heavy reliance on protection from others through silver tongues and little girls, her dead mother, the Queen Mother volcano that slept beneath the sea, the rage in her heart that threatened to burst from her chest and paint the beach red with blood. She thought of the wraiths she called her sisters. She thought of Noor and Irya, women who simultaneously did and did not exist. She thought of her island broken and buried deep beneath the whirling tides.

* * *

“They trust you to lead them, but I know you, Hashirama. You care about peace, and you believe in the Will of Fire, but you don't believe that, that fire can die, that peace an easily devolve into war, that those who are hated once will be hated _forever_. You don't believe that because you don't care, Hashirama. Your love, your desires – they all revolve around you, and only you. You never understood. I thought you did, but I was wrong. I was a fool, and Izuna died because of that foolishness.”

* * *

The Yin seal on Mito's forehead burned, and it burned alive.

* * *

“My own family has given up on me. They won't turn their back on you, Hashirama, they love too deeply for that. They love the idea you've sold them, this quest for peace that won't kill any more of our children and steal brothers from each other. But I know – I know that this world won't survive, that this peace won't last, that my family will die. You'll kill them – you'll kill them all, and they won't even know it. You and your ideals – your lies.”

* * *

Kiri wanted her seals and secrets just as Konoha did, but villages couldn't share women. They could barter, and buy, and contract out, but no woman could belong to two countries. No woman could be a person. All women had a purpose, and Mito was foolish enough to believe she'd been relieved of hers.

* * *

“I'll give them the peace they desire, Hashirama, this peace which they love so deeply. _I'll_ be the one who brings it to them. I'll tear the heavens apart and steal the moon from the sky. I'll give them what they truly desire, whether they like it or not. I'll bring peace to this world the only way the world will take it – by force.”

* * *

Mito neither ate nor sleep. Instead, she stared at the forest, the darkness mirroring the rage bubbling in her chest. The rope that her mother had hung herself with had ended up being repurposed by the maids after the woman's passing. They hadn't mentioned it to anyone, but Mito had sensed her mother's residual chakra on the rough hemp. The maids had used it to tie a fish trap to an iron rod. They'd used the rope so that the cage wouldn't float away with the river currents, because hemp was expensive and rare in Uzushio, and Mito's mother wasn't important enough to honor by burning the rope that killed her. Her daughters had to honor her on their own, daughters who were sold, daughters who remembered their mother, daughters who had a purpose, daughters who never had a choice.

* * *

“No,” Hashirama moaned, “no, no, no, no, n-”

* * *

Thirteen years ago, Mito had spent nine days defending the border against clans from Lightning Country. Hanging from the sails of her ship, she'd spied men and women in hooded ponchos, thick trousers, and heavy boots. She'd seen dull blonde hair and dark eyes. She'd seen lightning release in motion, saw the young man Kumogakure called “A,” saw swords studded with diamonds, saw the future of the world.

She seen black skin and thick hair. She seen curls, braids, buzzcuts, and bald pates that glistened underneath the sun. She seen locks of white, red, blonde, and ash grey framing faces dark as night, dark as the obsidian vases that peppered the halls of her father's house, people who looked nothing like Mito, but _were_ Mito, people who weren't of Uzushio, but were Uzushio's last princess.

Mito saw her mother.

* * *

In Konoha, there lived a god who loved a man with eyes as red as blood and skin as pale as a ghost's. For once, the god's wishes came true, and the man did not die. Instead, the man walked away, and the god realized that some fates were so much worse than death.

* * *

Mito's knees buckled as something hot burned beneath her breast. Two of her clan members grabbed her arms and tried to lift her back to her feet, but her knees wouldn't hold. Her shawl slipped off her shoulders and bile rose in her throat. Stomach acid spilled from her mouth and into the sand. Her vision swam, and she thought of her mother, thought of large, warm hands rubbing her back and holding back her long red hair as she'd thrown up bits and pieces of a poisonous frog.

“I'm impressed you managed to hold it together for as long as you did, Princess,” the party leader mused out loud. Once she'd stopped vomiting, she shakily raised her head and met the calm eyes of her escort leader. Her eyes implored his for an explanation, but he merely stared. He stared while she shook in agony, while her words died in her throat, while her nails bit into her palms and drew blood.

“Why?” She finally croaked, blood and bile dripping from the corners of her mouth.

“You know why,” he chortled, as if speaking to a child, as if she didn't eclipse him in age and in height, and if she were nothing in his eyes.

Her eyes finally turned to the rest of the Uzumaki. She saw grave faces and downcast eyes. The servants had long since turned away from the scene, no doubt fearful of the party leader's wrath. Mito glared at the assorted seal masters, a mixture of men and women, Uzumaki who traded seals in exchange for power and protection. She saw natives of an island that would soon be devoid of humanity, chakra manipulators who helped themselves and only themselves, the privileged few who'd forsaken her mountains, her seas, her meek, her hungry, her soldiers, her homeland.

But it wasn't the Uzumaki who broke Mito that night – it was the look on the faces of the trio her cousin had handed her. Three children looked at her with fear in their eyes, fear for her safety, fear for their own lives, children who didn't have a lick of chakra under their control, soldiers who'd probably joined the orphan army out of poverty and hunger, children that didn't have the red hair native to Uzushio, children of refugees, children who deserved better than what her clan had given them.

Mito finally realized why her banshees were laughing at her.

She ripped her arms out of the seal masters' hands and stood on her two feet. Spine curved and hair in a disarray, Mito panted like a dog. And yet, she stood on her own two feet, stared at the clan that betrayed her. Uncaring of the biting cold and the peering eyes, she ripped open her robes and exposed her breasts. She didn't have to look down to know that there was a cursed seal burning beneath her left breast.

“Even if I think about it?” She spat.

“Even if you think about it,” the escort leader countered without missing a beat. “You won't shame the clan, Princess – neither in body, nor in mind. The seal will burn you alive if you even _think_ about acting against Ashina-sama's orders.”

The banshees in her head began to beat against her skull. Mito found that they were no longer laughing. “When?” She whispered, trying to remember the patterns the hands pressed into her skin when they restored her hymen, when they masked the scars on her back and arms.

“The robes were inked and masked with lily oil,” the party leader stated. “Why else would the maids have dressed you? Ashina-sama couldn't very well brand you during the cleansing, so he had the seals printed into your robes. The inks merged through the layers and soaked into your skin.” He gave her a pitiful smile. “You should have been more vigilant, Princess. You weren't, and now look where you are.”

The voices in her head wailed. No more laughter, no more threats of sky demons ripping her to shreds, no more jabs about her dead mother – nothing but piercing screams. They cried for her mother like she cried for her mother. They were her, and she was them. Mito Uzumaki never forgot about her mother, not even when she'd forsaken her.

She thought about her naivete, about how her delusions were always as grand as her demons. Phlegm, bile, and blood dribbled from her mouth and painted her chest dirty. As if the clan would ever let her consider anything less than what they'd expected, as if there was every any hope to begin with – Mito almost laughed. She'd went to the army because even if she _had_ chosen marriage at the tender age of eleven, she would have been locked away until now. Who wouldn't? No one wanted little girls with banshees in their heads running around. No one had a purpose for little crazy little girls, much less mercy.

Mito thought about Kana and Suzu, and how she'd never see them again. She thought about Irya and Noor, and how they'd never meet. She thought about her fate, all the other pawns in the world, all the daughters her clan had sold to save its own skin. She thought about the Hokage who'd asked for a princess and her secrets, her seals and her red hair.

She thought about her mother and why she'd hung herself while Mito fought Lightning.

“You know why,” she muttered to the banshees in head, “you always knew why.”

Thirteen years ago was the first time Mito saw a man from Lightning Country. He had the black skin of her mother, thick tufts of hair that were refined, more regal versions of the chopped locks her mother wore. Mito knew now, just as she'd known then, just as Ashina had known, just as her mother had known, just as the banshees in her head had known.

And yet, her mother was dead, but Ashina still lived. Mito wondered if there had been a similar seal on her mother's skin. She wondered if the seal had burned the day her mother took her life. Mito wondered if the seal had ever stopped her from harming herself before she'd fulfilled her purpose.

The banshees wailed, and Mito wondered – had her mother cried? Had she cried knowing her daughter was killing her own people?

There lived a fury deep beneath Mito's ribs. It wrapped around her heart, and squeezed while the banshees cried harder. A cursed seal pierced the bones beneath her left breast, telling her that she never had a choice, that her sisters never had a choice, that her mother never had a choice.

The bitterness exploded behind her eyes and she howled with laughter, bile and spittle flying through the air. The cursed seal burned hotter, and she burned with it, burned as her rage and agony tore through her veins. Her skin prickled as the grave faces of the Uzumaki became fearful. The seal burned as Mito laughed, burned while she cried, burned while her pain mixed with her misfortune, burned while the banshees in her head never stopped crying.

The cursed seal burned while the Yin seal shattered on Mito's head. It burned as hot, purple chakra bled into her face and skull. It burned while something in the dark tasted her rage and chakra in the air. It burned while Mito raged. It burned while she burned, while something equally livid rose from its slumber.

It may have been the dead of night in Hot Water Country, with the sea as black as obsidian and a beach as thin as paper, but even in the dead of night, the forests of Hot Water loomed like sentries over travelers.

And now, something else loomed over them. Having risen from within the dense trees, hunched over and seething, dripping acid from its mouth, a creature seethed. The fog cleared and the hail clouds finally broke when the Kyuubi no Kitsune stared directly down at Mito Uzumaki.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When outlining Mito's character years ago, I tried to reread as much stuff as I could about the Uzumaki clan while Kishi was destroying his own canon, but the sheer lack of content was... lol. It really did open up the floodgates for me. Like, why not have Uzushio be a transit point for people fleeing the hidden villages? Why not make it a civilian hub? Back then, all we knew was that Mito and Hashirama married because of lolpolitics, and that Uzushio had some sort of military that used the whirlpool insignia. Besides that, there wasn't much of anything else that really drew a picture of what the island was, who its inhabitants were, and what it really did to survive between all of the clan wars and crackheadery. There also wasn't much expansion on how the lolpolitics affected Mito, or how she reacted to Uzushio being completely destroyed, even though she was alive through it all. I know Kishi wrote that "love" was what helped her persevere, but I really have to question the mental gymnastics involved in doing just that while a whole genocide was being carried out on her island nation.
> 
> tl;dr: Mito is a biracial woman, the Uzumaki clan used political marriages to buy protection, she's schizophrenic and isolated to boot, and Kurama just got rudely woken up from his nap. Will our gutsy heroine survive the encounter? Find out next time on DragonBallNaruto.
> 
> And don't hesitate to leave a review! :'>


	5. Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito thought of her dying island and her hunted clan, her quiet mother, and her refugee orphans. She thought about her purpose. She thought about who gave her that purpose, and if there was more than one purpose in this life. She thought about the choices that led her to this moment, and wondered if the Kyuubi knew too.

The banshees went quiet, and so did Mito.

The first thing that caught her eye was the serrated teeth. Not the flaming tails that turned hail into clouds of steam, or the emaciated, orange fur – what caught Mito's eyes were yellow teeth that were sharper than any blade Mito had ever seen.

“Mito-sama!”

And almost instantly, her banshees returned. This time, they screamed at her to run.

“Princess!” The party leader roared.

“Get in formation!” She heard one of her cousins yell. Arms yanked her back while an arch of sand and earth curved over her and two of her cousins.

“Get the princess away from the shore! Go!” She heard her party leader order. Her brain buzzed and the chakra flowing through her body crackled with the energy in the air. The ground opened up beneath her, and she and two of her cousins fell through the sand and into a pocket of air.

“I'll call my shark summons; we'll travel in their mouths,” ground out one of the Uzumaki women, a woman Mito only ever saw in passing before their journey to Fire Country. The woman made seven hand signs before the sand around them began to tremble, but by the time her eighth sign was half-finished, their air pocket was yanked from the earth and into the air.

Mito saw sickly eyes drawn to slits, burning with a rage Mito never thought was possible. The air pocket burst and they fell. She watched the demon grab one of her cousins with a hairy claw. Hail struck her face and eyes, obscuring her vision before she could learn of her cousin's fate.

Mito heard the tell-tale whistle of a wind technique before a powerful gale flung her towards a tree. Her hands mechanically grabbed a branch before the force of the wind could displace her entirely. She treated the branch as if it were a sail on one of her ships and not the arm of a fir. She opened her eyes and saw her party leader at the front of the phalanx, while three of her cousins used wind and water to deflect the beast's rage.

Blood slipped into her vision and she realized that the hail had broken skin. Before she could wipe the blood from her eyes, an arm wrapped around her waist and embraced her firmly.

“My shark summons are here,” rasped a voice into Mito's ear. Mito turned around to look at the Uzumaki woman, a cousin she barely knew, saw that one of her eyes were clawed out. The remaining eye was a piercing blue that stared deep into her soul.

Before Mito could say anything, the woman took Mito and flickered to another tree. Then another, and another, and Mito realized the sharks were further down the shore, away from the Kyuubi and her escorts.

A string of laughter followed them, and Mito tried not to think about why a creature over a thousand feet tall and over a thousand years old was laughing, or why the sounds of crunching and screaming followed her as she was rushed farther and farther away from the group. She wondered if this was Queen Mother's punishment for her tribe for betraying the sanctity of their seals. She wondered if Queen Mother knew that the Kyuubi would be sleeping in Hot Water Country's forest this night, this very night that her tribe was supposed to rest on its shores before moving towards the Land of Fire.

“Ack!” She felt herself and her cousin begin to fall. Again, Mito grabbed onto the branch of a fir tree, but her cousin's arm slipped from her waist. Before the woman could fall, Mito grabbed her hand.

“The sharks!” The woman cried hoarsely, and Mito realized that she was coughing up blood, and that her neck was bleeding profusely. “Run to the sharks! Mountains, up ahead!”

Mito craned her head and saw rolling hills bordering the sea, no thin strip of beach separating the waves from the cliffs. The sharks must have been waiting there, far enough away from the beast that they could lie in wait, but not so far away that Mito couldn't get to them.

When Mito looked down, she found that her cousin was in her death throes, hacking and coughing up dark streams of blood before hanging limply from her hand. Mito peered hard at the woman's slashed throat, and saw that a piece of claw jutted from the skin. She stared in awe, and the cursed seal flared up so harshly that Mito almost let go.

It dawned on her that fighting the beast was the same as going against Ashina's orders.

The sharks would take her, and only her, to safety. It wouldn't take her cousins, the maids, or the children that were tasked with protecting her, because they'd all be dead.

Mito could still hear the Kyuubi laughing, the clicking of serrated teeth, the hail, the wind, the smoke, the fire.

Mito jumped down to the forest floor, taking her dead cousin with her. Her feet hit mud and leaves. Before she could dwell on what she was about to do, she grabbed the broken claw from her cousin's throat and tore it out. The seal underneath her breast burned her flesh and ate through her ribs, but before it could engulf her heart and render her immobile, she stabbed herself.

Electricity coursed through her skin and she was flung backwards into a tree trunk. Her back and head cracked against the wood before she slid to the ground. Streams of blood dribbled down the side of her face, but she smiled. Looking down, she saw the that the claw had shred through the seal and rendered it useless. One of her ribs poked out accusingly, and Mito stifled the laughter in her throat.

She knew that Ashina knew, that all of the Uzumaki clan elders now knew that Mito was either dead or had escaped. Gritting her teeth and chuckling softly, she shed the robes from her shoulder and let them hang loosely around her waist. Tearing a piece of cloth from the arm of her inner robe and undoing the customary buns, she fastened the fabric around her broken rib and torn skin, fastening the makeshift bandages tight with the hair pins.

Her loose hair and naked chest embraced the bitter cold. A heavy layer of smoke and rain weighed down on the forest. Heavy sheets of rain replaced the hail, washing dirt and blood from her exposed skin. The thin film of chakra that had once filled in scars and blemishes to mimic purity had dissipated when her Yin seal shattered. Mito counted the scars on her stomach, and ghosted her fingers over the old slashes on her collarbone. She stared at the purple Yin seal which had shattered and spread to her face, neck, and breasts.

She also counted the new bruises on her chest, the torn skin of her hands, and the cuts on her forehead. Parts of her hair were burned and torn, and yet, Mito felt invigorated. She hadn't felt this free since her life was signed away. She thought this moment worthy. With one push of her bent knees, she was two hundred feet in the air. A muddy, embroidered shoe landed on the top of a fir tree. Mito gazed at the creature razing Hot Water's forest to the ground. She was far enough away that she could see nine tails undulating in the night. Even the rain clouding into steam was unable to obscure the creature from her sight.

Her swords, her scrolls, her army – they were all taken from her. All she had left were her secrets and the banshees in her head. She thought it poignant that her last night on earth would be against the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

There was honor in this death.

She tore another piece of cloth from her robes and tied it over her nose and mouth. She took deep, wet breaths, hoping the smoke in her lungs wouldn't kill her before the Kyuubi did. The rain picked up, and Mito smiled beneath the cloth. The rain was her friend, as familiar as her banshees.

She flickered towards the malevolence wreaking havoc on the forest, the voices in her head taking on the soft voices of her sisters, friends, and family. She thought of Nijima when he wasn't in front of his squadron, how patient and kind his words were to her when the banshees beat wildly against her skull. She thought of her attendants, a man and a woman, who looked after her needs when she came back from the battles tired and hungry. She thought of the orphans in the army, the ones she taught simple seals to, the ones who were made to watch as she led seasoned squadrons to fight clans from all over the sea and the greater continent. She thought of the mountain women who taught her how to turn rolling hills into living seals. She thought of her dying island and her hunted clan, her quiet mother, and her refugee orphans. She thought about her purpose. She thought about who gave her that purpose, and if there was more than one purpose in this life. She thought about the choices that led her to this moment, and wondered if the Kyuubi knew too.

When she was close enough, she released a flurry of water bullets that aimed for the creature's eyes. They turned to vapor before they could reach the black slits and sickly yellow sclera, but the surprise attack snapped the beast to attention. Its craned its nose into the air and sniffed for her chakra signature. While it searched for her with its nose, Mito made another quick succession of hand signs.

The seal erected a water mirror between the beast and the remaining members of her party. The beast spat a mouthful of fire at the mirror and found itself catapulted backwards by its own attack as the water mirror fizzled into steam and bathed the beach in hot mist.

She flickered over to the phalanx that was down to two of her cousins and her party leader. The rest of the party was nowhere in sight.

The party leader looked at her in shock, but before he could get out a single word, the beast's roar filled the night, causing her cousins to clutch at their ears. Mito merely watched, accustomed to sounds of screeching banshees.

“You have one chance,” she advised, as if addressing her lieutenants. “I can't raise another mirror, so this steam is all you have for cover.”

“We have to protect you,” ground out one of her cousins, his hair gone and scalp blackened by the beast's fire. “We don't have a choice.”

Mito's nostrils flared. “What?”

“You think you're the only one beholden to the clan?” Her party leader bellowed, as hateful as the beast whose roars echoed throughout Hot Water. “Do you think we _want_ to stand here and die for you!”

“Where are the seals?” She barked.

“On our hearts,” hissed her cousin with the burnt scalp.

Horror sprung in her eyes as she grasped their fate. “He wouldn't,” she gritted through her teeth. “Why you? I already had the seal!”

“Ask him when he joins you in Hell!” Spat an Uzumaki woman with straight red hair and pale white skin.

“We don't have a choice.” Her party leader's voice broke and tears spilled from his eyes. “We... never had a choice.”

But Mito did. She thought about the maids who'd accompanied them, and the children who were meant to protect her when it was supposed to be the other way around.

Mito stood in front of the remnants of the phalanx, spreading her arms in the steam that was finally beginning to lift. “Follow my lead,” she commanded as the beast's heavy steps reverberated through the beach.

“Queen Mother take us,” whispered her cousin brokenly, though Mito couldn't say which one uttered the words. She found that tears had sprung in her own eyes.

When the beast came into sight again, Mito released a spout of water at its neck. While the creature slapped the liquid away, Mito flickered to the trees. The seal masters followed, covering her blind spots. She erected large salt crystals around the beast's back paws before signaling her cousins to shoot. The Uzumaki with the burnt scalp produced great spurts of lava, while the Uzumaki woman with pale skin followed with a jets of cold water. The lava bubbled into thick, molten rock while the beast struggled to move its back paws. Her party leader released large gusts of wind, further hardening the rock while the rain around them finally had a chance to beat the flames eating at the forest.

The black sea glittered in the night air while the battle raged on.

The beast let out another breath of fire that collided with a wall of water. Under the steam cloud, Mito shot forward on foot towards the struggling creature. Eying the base of the Kyuubi's throat, Mito produced a set of salt crystal chains and threw them around the Kyuubi's atrophied throat. Once the crystal chains were secured, she jumped back in the air.

She began to swing in circles around the beast's throat, choking the fire from its throat while dodging its struggling paws and flaming tails. The more it struggled, the harder she pulled, and the harder she pulled, the faster the tails beat wildly against the forest floor. Mito's luck died on the third rotation when a flaming tail slapped her out of the air and into the trees. She screamed in agony while the chains slipped out of her hands and fell to the earth.

Mito landed against a rock a hundred feet away, having been thrown through several fir trunks and smaller rocks. She coughed up a mouthful of blood, surprised to see it spill so freely onto her chest and lap. She raised her long fingers to her face and tried to pull at her bandana. When she realized she wasn't wearing it anymore, Mito touched her face in wonder. The lower left half of her face was burnt so badly that she could feel exposed teeth and parts of her jaw bone. The bandana that was covering her mouth and nose had melted into parts of her skin. When she tried to pull a piece from her bubbling flesh, she yelped in pain.

Her eyes dazedly followed the charred flesh of her left arm, then down the left side of her torso and left leg. The blackened skin was rough with burnt muscle and forest debris. Her left breast was almost completely burned away, leaving only a loose film of skin and some hanging fat over the ribs protecting her heart. Her makeshift bandage had also burned away with the attack, and Mito saw that now she had three lower ribs poking out of her skin instead of one.

When her sense of smell finally kicked in and she realized skin and hair were still burning, bile immediately rose in her throat and spilled out of her exposed maw. Mito threw up. Blood, acid, and burned teeth fell from her mouth and onto the forest floor. When the coughs turned to dry heaves, Mito wiped her face with the back of her unburnt hand and shakily climbed to her feet. Turning around, she saw that the rock she'd landed against had her shape imprinted into its surface. Mito didn't need to stand in front of a mirror to know that the skin on her back and much of her hair was destroyed as well.

“Mito-samaaaaa!”

Mito slowly turned around to face the figure yelling her name. Her eyes widened at the sight of three children standing at the foot of a destroyed tree.

Children who held her swords, her scrolls – her army. She craned her neck up and gazed up at the beast that finally shook loose the salt chains around its neck and was now tearing at the molten rock holding its back paws hostage.

Mito limped over to the children, dragging her burned leg across the forest floor. The girls clutched her summoning scrolls and swords to their chests, while the boy stood sentry behind them. The blonde girl was missing a leg, the boy both of his arms, while the third child, a green-haired girl half Mito's height, had a red hole where her left eye used to be.

Mito didn't smell a lick of malleable chakra in their bodies, and yet they were alive. They were bloodied and limbless, but alive.

All three bowed deeply before the girls thrust their wares at her. The one-legged girl fell to the ground and coughed up blood. The boy knelt next to the girl, shoving his right stump towards her. Mito watched as the girl latched onto his shoulder and helped herself up to her only foot. They looked up at her with determination and awe in her eyes.

Mito looked down on the items they'd handed to her, knowing full well her clan head had sealed them away before she left the island.

“Genki-sama sends his regards,” said the one-eyed girl. Mito looked back at the child, and saw that she was smiling. “The sea and only the sea can take us.”

The Kyuubi roared. A great blast of black chakra began to spread through the forest, and instantly, Mito dropped the weapons and shielded herself and the children with a wave of water. Another cloud of hot steam overtook her senses, but it wasn't long before a great gale cleared the air and Mito realized that the Kyuubi had cleared much of what was left of the beach.

Mito gazed at the destruction. A clear path stood between the beast and the ocean. The boat that had carried them from Uzushio was no longer on the water. The trees her cousins had hidden in while performing their techniques were wiped clean off the forest floor. Mito tried to hone on her cousins' and party leader's chakra and found that she could no longer detect them.

They had gone with the blast, relieved of their duty to protect her.

Mito looked at what remained of the body she inhabited and thanked Queen Mother for her thirty-seven years. She'd walk into the Pure Place with her head held up high.

She took her summoning scrolls and laid them out on the razed ground in front of the Kyuubi. She counted one hour until the sun rose, and when it did, Mito wanted the world to know that the sea, and _only_ the sea, could take the children of Whirlpool.

She sat on her knees and straightened her ruined back. She took her shortsword and made a fresh cut across her forehead, releasing a steady stream of blood. Mito brought her burnt and unburnt fingers to her face and soaked them in blood. Then, keeping her eyes trained on the Kyuubi, she made ten streaks across the open scroll. She and the banshees recited the seals together as she performed the necessary hand signs. When she got to her tenth and final seal, she saw that the Kyuubi had finally turned its eyes to her.

Its blackened lips curved into a smile.

“Dog,” she rasped, finishing the seal and slamming her hands down on the open scroll. “Get behind me!”

The children followed quickly, the one-eyed girl dragging both the blonde child and the boy behind Mito. The Kyuubi cocked its head to the side as the earth began to tremble. Mito smelled blood in the air, her blood, her cousins' blood, burnt flesh, bubbling fat, the acrid scent of burned hair, her chakra oozing freely into the air, her Yin Seal shattered, her forehead bleeding.

Mito smiled back at the creature. What she did next would decide her fate in the afterlife, and so she did what Queen Mother and the gods of the sea wanted her to do.

“Kai!” She yelled, bringing her palms together in front of her, the tips of her fingers pointing towards the sky. Invisible hands snatched the children and wrapped them in protective water bubbles.

“Mito-sama!” They screamed, but she didn't turn around. She finished the release and directed the bubbles towards the three sharks she hoped were still waiting at the foot of the rolling mountains. Once the bubbles began to rush towards their destination, Mito finally rose to her feet. The Kyuubi peered at her, its smile widening with her every move. Once she felt that the children were far enough away, she flickered to the ocean.

The Kyuubi let out a roar of laughter before trudging up to the edge of the sea. “Angry and dirty,” it crooned throatily. “But firm. Firm meat is good meat.”

“Greedy,” she whispered.

It cackled, able to hear her even though she stood close to a hundred yards away. “Not as greedy as humans,” it teased, nine tails shifting languidly in the dark sky.

She allowed herself a chuckle. She wondered if there was any honor in being a tailed beast's chosen meal. “An old lady like me?”

“Meat is meat,” it remarked.

It dawned on Mito that her end was at least going to be a fun one. She always suspected she'd die in battle, but never alone, never with acres of forest burning, the sea black and restless, rain falling steadily from the sky. And yet, she was at peace with such an ending, at peace, since the children were safe and that the sea and only the sea would be able to take her.

She offered her hand to the creature. “Come join me in the water.”

Its smile fell and transformed into a scowl. “Insolent!”

Her own smile collapsed, and she looked blankly at the creature capable of leveling nations with a flick of its tails. “Coward,” she sighed, her banshees agreeing with her for once.

When the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox opened its mouth again, something shot from the depths and clamped the tailed beast's jaw shut. Another figure rose quickly from the water and punched the beast square in the gut. Nine tails billowed wildly as the Kyuubi strained to open its mouth. When its claws finally managed to rip through the restraints, it howled with rage and spat acid at her. She easily dodged the abrasive substance and flickered farther across the ocean, watching as the beast clawed at the rest of the chains.

“Mito,” came a deep voice from within the sea.

“Now,” she commanded, and before the Kyuubi could gather its bearings, another set of entities rose from the depths of the sea and this time latched onto the Kyuubi's hind paws. Black tendrils of flesh wrapped around its jaws, and finally, a pair of spiked arms wrapped around its front paws. Before the Kyuubi could burn through the restraints with its heat, they dragged the tailed beast off the beach and into the water.

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox erupted into screams that shattered the restraints clamped around its jaws. Wind, rain, and salt water lapped at its body as arms of several giant squid dragged it further and further underwater.

“FILTHY HUMAN!” The Kyuubi roared.

“Mito,” came the deep voice beneath the sea once again.

“Put him in the cage,” she instructed her summons. The three-eyed creature hummed and floated towards where the Kyuubi struggled, followed suit by an army of smaller squid. Mito watched as the beast thrashed and tore at the tentacles, baying for her blood as the sea boiled alive with its heat. She remained still as the soles of her feet burned with the boiling water, waiting as her familiar made the final strike.

The Kyuubi screamed one last time before the arm of the Kraken wrapped around its throat and yanked its neck into the depths below. A great tsunami of water spread across the sea and the beach on impact. Wind, water, and the protective arms of her squid familiars shielded her from flying across the water. Once the water settled, Mito saw the Kyuubi no more and felt the water beneath the soles of her feet finally return to its normal temperature.

The sun rose in the east. Mito sighed deeply and gazed at the destruction. Much of the forest visible to her was either destroyed by the fire or the tsunami. She could still see puffs of smoke in the air, the fire no doubt having spread to the towns and villages scattered throughout the coast. Mito wondered how many seals controlling the geysers on the coast shattered during the fight. She also wondered how many more unfortunate souls had died by virtue of just being in the vicinity, in Hot Water Country on the night that the Kyuubi had risen from its sleep to greet the Uzumaki clan and its attendants.

But Mito didn't have much time left to dwell. She looked down at her body, fading in both chakra and life. If she was to meet her end now, she had to meet it with respect. The gods of the sea and Queen Mother wouldn't take any less than that.

With breaking dawn came the early rays of light. Slick tendrils rose from the depths and invited her down.

“Mito,” said her friend from the depths.

Mito nodded, and let the tentacles gently pull her into the sea.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always wanted to write the Kraken into one of my fanfictions skdlgsbgdf 
> 
> It took me a couple months to figure out what kind of power set I wanted Mito to have, but after much deliberation and plenty of pretty volcano photography, I finally decided on long-range, water specialist with Kraken-sama as her primary familiar. Her hand-to-hand is garbage, but she shoots water bullets and uses salt crystal chains, so I like to think she'd be ready on sight. Much fun writing naked warrior lady.
> 
> Until next time, folks! Reviews and feedback are much appreciated. :D
> 
> P.S: If anyone's noticed, each chapter title is also the name of a Smallville episode. Why? Because I love Smallville!!!


	6. Subterranean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Mito's homeland, bijuu were feared as the earth's energy personified. Millennia before, people had worshiped his kind. The thousand-year war on the greater continent spoke of nine beasts currently roaming the land and water, but Mito and her people knew that, that number was a myth. Humans had forgotten the gods in the skies, and those that slept quietly beneath the ocean. The Kraken was testament to that faith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes on how to read this chapter without getting confused: 
> 
> _**This is telepathic dialogue between characters.** _
> 
> The Kraken is very cool.
> 
> I love kudos and comments! (~˘▾˘)~

“The Kyuubi attacked Hot Water,” Tobirama repeated to the collective.

Nine clan heads and several of their closest attendants remained grim in the dimly lit room. Some sat around the low table, while others opted to stand in the shadows. Touka stood near the Aburame, far enough away from Tobirama that it was clear to the rest that she wasn't the one the missive was addressed to. Tobirama remained in front of the firmly shut sliding doors, while his clan head, his elder brother, stood in front of the paper screens separating the moonlit forest from the Senju's meeting room.

Shuji Nara was the first to speak. “It hasn't attacked a human settlement in ten years. What do you think triggered the attack?”

“The daimyo claims it was rogues, but I'm doubtful.” Tobirama trained his eyes on the figure of his elder brother. “The messenger bird arrived at my post less than two hours ago. The missive suggests that the fire started three nights before it was sent.”

“Any suspicion that this was politically motivated?” Susumu Yamanaka inquired.

“It's too early to say.”

Takeshi Inuzuka chuckled harshly. “Uncanny, isn't it? Three days, three different beasts on three different parts of the continent. Madara works fa-”

“Hunger,” Hashirama Senju interrupted icily, and the collective stilled.

The Inuzuka clan head snorted but didn't question the interruption. Tobirama couldn't see his brother's eyes, not when they were hidden beneath the dark brown hair Hashirama had inherited from their father.

“They're hungry,” Hashirama clarified, the coldness in his voice transforming into a gentle lull. “Why wouldn't they be? The wars have been dying down and we're working towards peace. There's less to eat, less people accidentally walking into a beast's sleeping grounds. I agree it's uncanny we've had three attacks in the same week, but bijuu are family. If one attacks – why wouldn't the others follow?”

“And if it's Madara's waking them?” Shuji Nara challenged.

Tobirama watched his brother raise his head. The bangs shifted ever so slightly to reveal dark brown eyes underneath. They seemed dull, almost lifeless, but Tobirama knew better. In life, Tobirama feared almost nothing, but if there was something, anyth-

“Then I'll kill him,” Hashirama said softly. A smile had blossomed on his face, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

“I will travel to the border of River Country and Wind Country,” Tobirama proposed, attempting to move the conversation towards strategy. “The Demon Monkey destroyed one of River's border towns, but our bases in River say that the damage went as far as Wind. River will be expecting aid as we're allied, but we'll want to engage with Wind as well before they think _we're_ the ones that set the beast loose.”

“I can provide healers and builders,” Hidetaka Hyuuga offered. Tobirama nodded at his friend.

“I can travel to Hot Water,” Touka added while Kosuke Aburame nodded in agreement, declaring his intentions to accompany her.

“Then I will meet with the Raikage about the Demon Beetle,” Hashirama finalized. “We'll reconvene in two weeks time at the Naka Shrine.” Kaname Uchiha remained still and silent on his zabuton.

“And what about your fiancé ?” Takeshi Inuzuka chuckled. “We still need the Uzumaki seals if we want the Will of Fire to persevere.”

“We'll retrieve the Princess after we return,” Tobirama cut in before his brother could answer. “As far as I know, they've just began their journey. If anything, they probably turned around once they saw Yu no Kuni's coast burning.”

“If they're smart, then they've warned their people,” Naohiro Shimura mused.

“You know they did,” the Inuzuka clan head chortled.

“I'll retrieve her after I've found Madara,” Hashirama finalized. Tobirama stilled.

“Oh?” Takeshi Inuzuka's voice grew cold. “Even if it makes more sense to get the girl before him?”

Hashirama finally moved, and when he did, the air in the room grew stale, as if something was slowly eating away at the oxygen they shared. Tobirama watched as his brother pattered over to where the Inuzuka clan head slouched against the wall. Hashirama raised a hand and placed it on the older man's shoulder. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” barked the larger man, “but I don't trust Madara.”

“None of us do,” Touka assuaged gently. “But we have to prioritize – the Princess could get hurt if she joins us while the beasts and Madara are still active. It makes more sense for her to remain on her island while we sort things out. Once we're finished, we can escort her to Konoha ourselves.”

The Aburame, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clan heads nodded in agreement. Tobirama grit his teeth inside his mouth, but remained expressionless. He locked eyes with his cousin, and her gaze challenged him to speak up. Tobirama did not. Instead, he shifted his gaze to the butterflies nestled in Kosuke Aburame's elbow.

“Then it's settled,” Hashirama remarked pleasantly. “We'll travel to the border of River and Wind, Hot Water, and Lightning to help their leaders with the beasts. Then we'll reconvene to discuss how I'll find Madara.”

Tobirama almost sneered.

“And then Touka, Tobirama, and I will travel to Uzushio to retrieve the Princess,” Hashirama finished.

Tobirama wanted to scream. He wanted to shout that their borders, their _village_ , mattered more than the wraith that had defected. He wanted to shake his brother by his shoulders, and remind him that the Will of Fire only extended to the loyal, to the worthy.

“If we were to retrieve her first, then we could seal the beasts with each of your visits,” came a thoughtful voice. Tobirama looked to Kaname Uchiha who finally spoke. “But the level of danger associated with such a feat is far too high. I agree with Touka-san that it makes sense to save the Princess for last. The longer she stays put, the easier it will be to put things in motion.”

“Madara made his choice,” Naohiro Shimura sighed, shaking his head as if saddened by the loss, when everyone in the room knew he wasn't. “A shame, really, but what can you do?”

“Strengthen our resolve,” Hashirama said gently, and yet, Tobirama could sense the cracks in the facade.

Once the clan heads and their members dispersed, only Tobirama and Touka remained in the room with Hashirama. A preternatural urge to hide came upon Tobirama, but he stifled his anxiety to face his brother.

“Anija,” Tobirama started, but a sudden drop in temperature froze the words in his mouth. Touka shuddered beside him, but didn't budge. Hashirama stood with his back to them, his eyes on the paper screen separating the Senju from the cold, winter night outside.

“Endearing, isn't it, this love of ours?” Tobirama and Touka flinched when plants slithered out of their pots and vases and slithered over the tatami to their master. “Our love for our country and our village. We sacrificed so much to get here,” Hashirama murmured blithely while vines and branches wrapped smoothly around his legs and up his arms. “Our love is endearing – enduring. The Will of Fire burns inside of us all.” He finished his sentence with a clench of his fists, though his voice remained as gentle and tender as a leaf floating in the wind.

In life, Tobirama feared almost nothing, and certainly not death, not when it was a daily fact of life. He had pride, but he also had common sense. There was little to fear in the world if one simply accepted that some things simply wouldn't change. There was comfort and stability in that philosophy, so Tobirama believed. He believed peace was possible because the Senju had created bonds with neighboring clans, because the Will of Fire had more than one adherent. He believed, because his brother championed their cause, because his cousins agreed, because the Hokage was right, because Hashirama Senju was the god of shinobi.

And like all gods, even this one demanded what it was owed. If there was something, anything Tobirama truly feared, then it was the creature standing in front of him, its figure wreathed in vines and branches sprouting purple and pink flowers. Tobirama didn't know if it was a testament to his power, or if it was simply the Will of Fire in the shape of thriving blossoms, but Tobirama knew at least one thing. He knew that there was one god, and his name was Hashirama Senju.

And like all gods, he too could destroy them all with a single flick of his wrist.

* * *

A refugee from Wave Country had taught Mito how to breathe underwater. She had been thirteen years old and recently educated in the basic seal structures that the island used daily to seal and unseal small items. She found that her affinity had been a mixture of wind and sea, commonplace for Uzushio islanders born and raised in the country. Few took to practicing with water, however, not when there was more to be gained from fuinjutsu and wind techniques.

The boy had been raised by the meager army after having been orphaned when he was just seven. His parents had died on the journey to Uzushio. He knew his numbers and characters, unlike Mito who was still learning after having gone untaught during her formative years. The boy had known how to breathe underwater and walk across water like it was marble, while Mito still had trouble centering chakra into the soles of her feet.

He taught Mito how to speak his language and channel chakra. He taught her how to manipulate the molecules in the water so that she could breathe underwater, and drew her pictures of what Wave Country looked like before the Two-Tailed Demon Cat destroyed several towns over the course of a week. He'd taught her how shoot water bullets from the tips of her fingers, and prank fishermen who wouldn't give them eel.

He had been six weeks older than her and he never let her forget it.

She never begrudged him for it. If it hadn't been for him, she wouldn't have learned to swim for hours on her own. She'd taught herself how to crawl across the ocean floor with his teachings. She'd swam on the backs of large fish, and spent hours of her life floating in the water and staring at the sun and moon, all because a little boy had taught her how to breathe underwater. Today, she could raise water mirrors and waves, and could turn the salt in the sea into crystals. She could stalk enemy soldiers under the cover of night and sea, and trap monsters in salt chains. She could touch dolphins, explore reefs, and let the whirlpools pull her into their embrace on her darkest days. She was one with the sea, as her gods intended.

She thanked her friend, a refugee from Wave Country, dead for sixteen years. She looked forward to seeing him again in the Pure Place.

The Kyuubi seemed to sense her memories and snarled at her, struggling against the cage. It had taken three days and three nights of chanting to fully seal the beast into a cage made from Queen Mother's obsidian. It was an old instrument, one that the islanders had used before to seal sea creatures that had attacked their ports. It was the same cage she used to seal A's isopod summon before he yielded and Kumo's ships returned to their homeland.

Mito blinked, and floated to where she was eye to eye with the beast. She peered at its flaring nostrils and tried something different.

 _ **Can you hear me?**_ She asked the creature currently trapped in a cage at the bottom of the sea. Only its nose and mouth were protected by a bubble, while the rest of it was submerged in water. It bore its teeth and snarled again, but Mito caught the slight shift in its gaze. It had heard her loud and clear, even though she hadn't spoken a single word. **_You can read minds_**.

Black slits set in sickly yellow sclera glittered in the murky depths. He didn't answer her.

 _ **If you struggle, we'll both drown,**_ she said sadly. She hadn't consumed anything but kelp and seawater since the creature's attack. Whatever energy and chakra she had left had been poured into the cage. If it fought her, Mito would fight back. And if Mito fought back, they would drown.

The Kyuubi narrowed its eyes and gave her a sharp smile before finally confirming her suspicions. _**I can't die, Little Woman.**_ It rasped in a deep, scratchy voice.

_**I know.** _

In Mito's homeland, bijuu were feared as the earth's energy personified. Millennia before, people had worshiped his kind. The thousand-year war on the greater continent spoke of nine beasts currently roaming the land and water, but Mito and her people knew that, that number was a myth. Humans had forgotten the gods in the skies, and those that slept quietly beneath the ocean. The Kraken was testament to that faith.

She knew he'd return, but at least he'd return weaker and after she'd perished. No amount of fire could burn the cage a mile beneath the sea. The only light present between the two was the dim glow of nine tails that lay prone at the bottom of the cage. If he fought, she'd pop the bubble and let the children of the deep swallow them whole. Hopefully, the cursed seals on the cage stayed in tact for several centuries, long enough that the Kyuubi would forget her charred face and whatever remained of her red hair.

She already knew she wasn't rising from the depths again. She didn't have the strength or the resolve. The sea would take her, as her gods willed – as she intended.

 _ **Hungry**_ , he hissed. **_Rage – made of rage and bitterness, Little Woman_** , chuckled the creature. After some seconds, it dropped its shoulders and drew closer to the the thick bars. Its wet fur brushed against the cursed seals humming with dark energy. _**Just a little taste. Chakra flooding the cold night – smell so good. Smell like...**_ The demon's eyes glowed in the depths, its blackened lips stretching into a smile. **_Smell like madness. Mad Little Woman._**

Mito shuddered, remembering the shattered Yin seal on her head that had long since returned to its diamond form at the top of her head. She'd been furious at the cursed seal burning underneath her breast, so angry that her own clan had betrayed her, betrayed her sisters, betrayed her mo-

 _ **Uzushio?**_ The creature tapped its claw against a bar rhythmically, as if counting to itself. **_Destroy. Eat. String little people together by intestines – like paper dolls._**

The words rushed out of her mind and into the Kyuubi's, fraught with panic. _**Haven't you destroyed enough? Why don't you go back to sleep? You were sleeping before. Sleep now. Sleep again.**_

 _ **Little Woman wake – Little Woman pay.**_ It tutted softly, as if speaking to a child. **_Eat what world gives. World gives rage and bitterness? Eat rage and bitterness. Uzushio bitter. No freedom. Caged on earth. Hell. This is hell, and you created it._**

 _ **We never had a chance,**_ she agonized, as if battling with her banshees who'd gone silent with the pressure of the sea, who couldn't speak when Mito crawled on the ocean floor and rode on the backs of slithering, giant eel, who stayed silent in the face of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

 _ **Choice? What choice? No choice. No choice for anyone. I eat what exists. I eat – you watch.**_ It promised. _ **I eat everything... then I eat you.**_

She thought of Ashina, who sold her to the god of shinobi living in the Land of Fire. Then she thought of the eight other tailed beasts who roamed their world and wreaked havoc left and right, further kindling the fire and hatred burning across all their lands. She looked at their king, locked in a cage underneath the sea, an army of squid standing witness while it jeered at an Uzumaki with burnt hair and burnt skin.Unconsciously, she grabbed the bars and pressed her face against the cage. _ **You disgust me,**_ she snarled back. _ **Look at your mangy fur. When was the last time you groomed? Ate something besides a human being? Filthy cat. You think yourself worthy, but you're just like the others. Have some shame!**_

It tried to bite her through the bubble and cage, but the bubble merely tightened. Wheezing, it swiped at the bars with its claws, but Mito dodged the attack, and pressed her face back against the cage.

 _ **Look at me,**_ she demanded. ** _Look what you've done. Take responsibility for your actions, at least, even if you can't look after your own monsters._**

 _ **Weak,**_ it retorted evenly, dropping its claws, and peering eerily into her eyes. The bubble brushed against Mito's skin. _ **Weak and mad. Talking to nothing. No banshees. No voices. Just madness.**_

 _ **Yes,**_ she growled back, because she _was_ mad, and she talked to nothing, because there _was_ nothing. There were no ghosts, no voices, no banshees. It was just her and her sickness. Her mind had been broken since birth, with no cures nor seals in the world that could heal something that was born faulty. Any other person with her condition would have been taught a basic trade and spent whatever short years they had to live working a kiln, or a needle and some thread. Maybe the could have been a fisherwoman, but because she was an _Uzumaki_ , she couldn't be taught something as simple as a trade. She couldn't learn her numbers and her letters, she couldn't be trusted not to harm herself or others until she was old enough to be sold, to be done away with, because she had no purpose, no purpose, no purpo-

 _ **Everything must die,**_ the Kyuubi whispered softly into her mind. _**Everything.**_

 _ **After all I sacrificed to protect them?**_ She asked hollowly, remembering her mountains. Her soldiers, her meek, and her hungry remained with her whirlpools while she floated with a demon at the bottom of the sea. _**They'll die?**_

_**No exceptions to the rule. Your pain will also die when you die. When I eat – you're free.** _

_**You can give me that?**_ She asked.

 _ **I eat – you die. Your body – now yours, now free. No more the ruling clan's. It won't matter anymore. I see how little humans treat little women.**_ It chortled before continuing. _ **Bijuu nothing compared to humanity's greed. Need to possess that which has no desire to be possessed – that is humanity.**_

 _ **There's no escape from our fate, but our home is innocent,**_ she appealed. _**If you destroy it, we'll die.**_

 _ **But you won't,**_ it chastised. _**The Uzumaki will never die – only Uzushio. Your clan made sure of that, didn't they, Little Woman?**_

 _ **Hashirama Senju will protect them!**_ Could the creature see that she wept? Could it separate the sea from her eyes and count her tears?

 _ **He will eat you,**_ it countered with glee. _**But you won't be free – you will never be free.**_

 _ **Then help me,**_ she begged, because she was weak, hungry, insane, born broken, just a woman, sold off because that was all she was worth.

 _ **Since when do generals beg, Princess?**_ The beast crowed, its own madness gleaming in its eyes.

Mito balked, taken aback. _**My people never did anything to you.**_

Something shifted in the creature's eyes. Mito began to feel warm, even though she was in the deep, dark cold.

 _ **You think your people worthy?**_ He dragged a claw against the bars. _**You think your people deserve mercy?**_

 _ **Everyone deserves mercy,**_ she protested. _**Just because death is natural doesn't mean you can wreak havoc with impunity. Humans aren't cockroaches. We'll perish if you don't stop.**_ Mito's heart raced in her chest. _**And so will you,**_ she concluded. _**There won't be any rage left to feed on. No people... no beasts.**_

The creature didn't deny her assertion. Instead, it gently flicked one of its nine tails in the water, and created ripples that brushed against her cold skin.

 _ **Let me take your hand,**_ she asked softly.

It didn't offer her one, so Mito turned around and swam down to the ocean floor. When she reached the bottom, she lay down on her side and curled up in front of the cage. She wanted to sleep her last moments away, so when the ocean took her, it would take her at her gentlest. She wished the beast could offer her some comfort in her last moments, but she knew it wasn't like her. She'd resigned herself to her fate – but he planned on taking everyone with him when he descended to Hell.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> Please note that moving forward, chapters will be released on a **monthly** basis. Don't forget to leave a review!


	7. Wrath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touka was not a child of the sea, nor was she a child of the wind. No amount of genjutsu would help those who'd survived the fires and the tsunami that followed. She couldn't even begin to fool herself, because she knew – she knew that whatever dragged the Kyuubi off Hot Water Country's coast was likely watching her too. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. She could feel something peering into her soul, something that lay beneath the depths. She prayed that it would spare her.

Madara hacked up phlegm and blood when the Kyuubi first began to drown.

* * *

 _ **I ate a child before I went to sleep,**_ the beast sang into the deep while Mito blinked tiredly. She'd barely slept, and in turn, hadn't yet died. Mito cursed the chakra reserves of her bloodline, the life that was more punishment than boon. _**A child bride on the eve of her marriage to the daimyo,**_ continued the beast, _ **and she asked me to free her – so I did.**_

* * *

Madara bent over and vomited stomach acid all over his clan's treasured scrolls.

The scrolls spoke of horrors and mysteries alike. Izuna had hated them, hated the evil they emanated and their tales of subjugation and horror. And yet, Madara wasn't Izuna. Madara loved the scrolls as much as he hated them, but at the end of the day, he hated himself the most. Even if he had to use his own body to achieve his dream, he'd do it, he'd follow the legends scribed into the scrolls and do what was necessary.

“Feeding them lies like Hashirama fed you?” The ghost asked softly.

An mouthful of phlegm pounded in Madara's chest, and he wheezed, clawed at his chest, willed his lungs to breathe because Death wouldn't give him the absolution he craved.

“You should have died with me,” the ghost said coldly.

Madara coughed up the phlegm and cried for his dead brother. Hundreds of miles away, a beast sang beneath the sea.

* * *

_**I eat humans because I hunger. I eat bones and flesh because that's how my Mother made me. Tell me, Little Woman – why do humans trade little girls? What do you benefit from their meager flesh and tiny bones? Is it their screams? Is that what you feed on?** _

* * *

Hashirama breathed in the cold air of Frost Country and smiled. “Madara was here.”

* * *

Touka was half a day from the coast of Hot Water Country when she finally saw the sea appear before her eyes.

They'd still have to travel over the mountains to get to where the Kyuubi had attacked, but Touka couldn't help but shudder at the water that stood eerily still and silent after a raging monster had just leveled the land next to it. She thought about the towns the fire had destroyed, and all the seals that had come undone while the Kyuubi raged its attacked. Hot Water Country was a land of traders and mountain men. Their swamps were filled with giant alligators, while their mountains thrived with rare foliage. Hot Water sold medicine and homeopathic remedies. Its capital city and hidden village, Yugakure, provided year-long treatments to soldiers, civilians, and refugees fleeing from the thousands wars, trading the art of healing in exchange for relative quiet and a steady shield away from conflict. The people of the land had turned a vast, jungle-like terrain with ten thousand geysers and underwater volcanoes into a land that sought to cure maladies rather than inflict them. It was a philosophy Touka never understood herself, but it was one she respected. The surrounding nations spoke of their hidden geysers and volcanoes with hushed tones, and yet they visited, spending days at their hot springs, healing cottages, and the great forest that slept quietly next to the sea.

And it had all been annihilated in the blink of eye.

What frightened Touka the most was that it had happened overnight. The coastal towns had gone to bed, and by the time dawn broke, thousands had died and the creature was no where to be found. The fires and tsunami never reached Yugakure itself, but the smoke cloud could be seen from as far away as Konoha's border.

Usually, the tailed beasts slept somewhere nearby after an attack, allowing shinobi to seal the caves, mountains, and lakes the creatures receded to, but the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was a creature of earth and fire. Unless it hid within the mountains, there was no where else for it to go. Touka froze as Kosuke Aburame's glasswing butterfly flew them closer and closer to the sea.

Touka was not a child of the sea, nor was she a child of the wind, so she merely tightened her arms around her lover's waist and pressed her nose into his shoulder. No amount of genjutsu would help those who'd survived the fires and the tsunami that followed. She couldn't even _begin_ to fool herself, because she knew – she knew that whatever dragged the Kyuubi off Hot Water Country's coast was likely watching her as she and her lover flew on the armored back of the Aburame clan head's strongest animal summon. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. She could feel something peering into her soul, something that lay beneath the depths.

She prayed that it would spare them.

* * *

“Mito,” the Kraken called. “It's time.”

Mito wheezed. She could barely move, much less nod her head. Tentacles gathered underneath her withered body and began to carry her away from the beast and to their Queen Mother.

_**Your mother was sold to the living seal. What do you say to that, Mito Uzumaki?** _

Mito's senses snapped and she tugged at the Kraken to stop. It did. When she mewled, it gently pushed her pruned and bony figure to the cage. The beast and she locked eyes.

_**So much sadness in your soul, knowing that you weren't a child of love, but one of duty. Princess Mito Uzumaki of the Whirlpool, fifth daughter of the youngest son of the younger sister of the Uzumaki clan head... Unwanted, unloved.** _

“Your Queen Mother is waiting,” the Kraken called again. An army of squid tugged at the burnt and ragged remainders of Mito's clothes. “It's time.”

 _ **Purposeless,**_ sang the creature. _**But not. Liar. Little Woman lies. Sails, swords... Soldiers.**_

Mito tried to speak through her mind, but even that was helpless. She was weak. She was propped up against a sealed cage with the help of her familiars. She was less than human now. She was a waste of space, a waste of the Kraken's time. It was time for her to go.

 _ **Weak,**_ the Demon said. _**Kill to defend the very clan that betrays her. Little Woman human.**_

Mito's fingers brushed against a squid. They began pulling her away again, away from the beast that spoke the truth, the beast she would leave to her familiars to hold for as long as they could until the obsidian withered and broke. A life for a life – her life for Uzushio's.

 _ **I eat,**_ the beast whispered one last time. Then, the creature clapped its paws in front of its chest. The force of the clap popped the bubble that shielded its head from the water. Mito felt herself being flung back into the Kraken's embrace.

 _ **I EAT,**_ she heard the creature thunder in her head. _ **I EAT, LITTLE WOMAN. I FEAST ON HUMANITY. I FEAST ON UZUSHIO.**_

Mito choked on water and blood as the creature's fiery chakra boiled the water a thousand feet under the sea. She heard Queen Mother and her cousins groan. She watched as the beast drowned, watched it drown as its tails flailed before they finally broke through the obsidian cage.

 _ **I FEAST,**_ it screamed in agony as its body drowned and the water around it boiled. _**I DIE, BUT I FEAST.**_

* * *

Touka and Kosuke rocked with the sudden burst in killing intent. Seven other insects carrying Senju and Aburame shinobi flanked the glasswing butterfly and watched in awe as the sea began to boil alive.

* * *

Bodies upon bodies floated to the top of the ocean as the Kyuubi rose from the sea on a cold, wintery evening off the coast of Hot Water Country. It's ascension was as astonishing as one would expect from the most powerful tailed beast to roam their world. The creature coughed up water and acid before roaring into the sky. It's rise from the sea and undulating tails set off a tsunami of waves that washed away whatever was left of the coast.

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox looked at the burnt figure of the woman clutched in his fiery paw. It was the woman who'd woken him from his slumber and then locked him away beneath the sea. The beast chuckled. The woman now looked more like burnt squid than she did human. He dropped her body from his grip and cackled when she hit the water and floated listlessly.

And yet, it brought a wet claw against her cold and withered skin and stopped her from floating away.

 _ **Pitiful Little Woman. Such rage and bitterness. A beast in human skin.**_ A claw touched the little bit of red hair that hadn't burnt away. **_Wish you could watch as I feast on Uzushio, as I come back every hundred years to string tiny humans by their intestines, like paper dolls._** Its claw raked down the burnt side of her body, the blackened skin slicing easily underneath its power. Blood spilled into the water, and the Kyuubi breathed deeply.

 _ **Pluck and eat like a baron. No one to blame but yourself, Little Woman.**_ It dipped its claw into her blood and then brought it to its lips. It sucked on the warm liquid and closed its eyes.

The Kyuubi wheezed, struggling to breathe when it felt something punch it straight in the jugular. It clawed at its own throat, scratching skin and fur.

The Kraken gently wrapped a tentacle around Mito's open wound and spoke softly through the water and into her ears.

“Blood flows,” it said earnestly, stroking her withered and frail limbs. “Blood flows, so you live.”

And she did. Mito cracked her eyes open and breathed raggedly. She swallowed the blood in her throat and tapped the tentacle with her bony fingers as the beast continued to thrash. The Kraken shielded her from flying off, from drowning – her familiar, her friend.

“Do it,” she rasped.

The Kraken sighed deeply, the ocean vibrating with its sadness. But still, black ink floated to the surface and soaked Mito's broken body black. Smaller squid slithered up the Kraken's arm and onto Mito's chest. Once there, they chopped off the rest of her burnt, left breast. They sloughed dead skin off living tissue, and bound the wound with their sticky slime. Then they drew. They etched seals with the Kraken's ink and her fresh blood, remade her skin as the islanders remade their mountains before they disappeared for the winter.

The earth is a living seal, said the fishermen at the port of Uzushio when the sun finally dipped and the markets closed. So were the mountains, Mito remembered.

“As is the sea,” the Kraken reminded her.

“Jinchuuriki,” whispered the army of squid as the seal lay flat where her left breast used to be.

When the Kyuubi finally regained its breath, it looked down to see a pool of black surrounding the woman's body. Its eyes widened when it noticed that the fresh wound it had cut into her was stitched shut, while something black and red peered up at it from where her left breast used to be.

The Kyuubi roared and spat a stream of acid at her, but the Kraken's arm shielded the floating body. With another tentacle, it slapped the tailed beast away. The Kyuubi struggled to its feet before swiping at Mito again. This time when the sea creature went for the beast's throat, the Kyuubi retaliated with its powerful teeth. It's jaw closed around the Kraken's tentacle and bit into the slimy flesh. It tore at the tentacle, sending bits and pieces of the cephalopod's arm flying through the air and into the ocean.

The Kyuubi only noticed the woman again once she was some yards away and crouching deeply, head bent and on her knees, supported by an army of smaller squid. Mito raised her head at the creature who stopped tearing at the tentacle and watched in awe as the sea turned into a mirror around them.

“Tell Queen Mother I'm sorry,” she whispered to her friends. She heard the children of the sea cry for her.

_**NO!** _

Before the Kyuubi could swipe at her, she slammed her bloodied and inked hands onto the mirror and let it shatter into smithereens. The shards became one with the water as the creature turned into a great ball of light and began entering Mito's chest through where her left breast used to be. The sea shook and the squid screamed, the Kraken screamed, screamed as Mito screamed. They screamed as the moon looked down, as the ocean lapped at her feet, as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was sealed into its twentieth jinchuuriki.

* * *

Touka heaved. The sea had began to boil, and within minutes of seeing the steam rise, they turned around. They were three miles away when they saw the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox rise from the sea, four miles away when the tsunami waves began creeping towards the shore. They made it past six towns by the time the water reached the desolate coast. After the first wave crashed into the mountains behind the glasswing butterfly, Touka turned around from the destruction, held onto her lover, and prayed as they flew away.

And they flew. They flew until they were back in Fire Country, far away from the ocean, far away from the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. They'd all survived, every shinboi of the Leaf, but not Hot Water.

Once they were back in Konoha, Touka staggered off the armored butterfly and collapsed to the earth, kissing it as she cried.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the critical point where the story diverges entirely from the original Naruto canon. I wanted to build a foundation where Kurama's sealing isn't done in any joint effort with Konoha, but instead done _entirely_ because of Mito's efforts. I want to make it clear that from this point forward, the fanfiction takes only the bare bones of the pre-Naruto canon, and thus becomes an 'alternate history.' Take it as the moment when the world turned left instead of right. I hope you've all been enjoying it thus far. Please don't hesitate to leave comments and kudos~ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


	8. Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ideally, these prayers would be recited within the shrines of the Senju compound by the brides of Senju soldiers, but Hashirama was no man's bride, and Madara Uchiha was no Senju.

He lived in caves. If there were no caves, then he'd build a shelter within the recesses of the terrain. Over the years, he'd become quite adept at creating a base from raw materials. In Frost Country, he'd built an igloo at the far edge of a mountain, with nothing but ice and sky for miles around. War taught him well. He only went out at night to forage for food. He boiled water early in the morning so his fire could mingle with other fires being kindled at the same time. He ate plants and roots, sought out mushrooms and berries, and once in a while, captured some pigeons.

He didn't talk to others, and never strayed too far from his shelters unless he was specifically hunting for something. Nobody cared about the shadow lurking on the edge of their vision. They didn't care because there were other shadows to worry about, wars and tailed beasts in one corner or another, uncaring of the man who hacked and coughed every hour of the day and night.

Madara carried six paper seals. Each seal held a different cache of items. He had his weapons and armor stored in one seal, his family scrolls in another, some clothes and toiletries in the third, and in the remaining three, he carried items he'd tracked down across the land.

And since the day Izuna died, a ghost followed his every step.

Long ago, Madara had four brothers, a mother, and a father. One by one, they all perished, much like members of other families within his clan, until there was only one left standing. Except, with other families, when Death took a person, they disappeared for good. Their memories remained within the realm of the living, but beyond that, they were simply shadows that had come to fade.

“But we're cursed,” Madara mumbled, building his eighth shelter since defecting from the hidden village he helped to found. “We're cursed to relive the past while living in the present, and watch as it destroys our future.” It was a common train of thought in the Uchiha clan, and it was one Madara rarely forgot. The Sharingan was a spinning wheel of patterns, a copy of a copy of a copy. It burned memories permanently into the skulls of its hosts. It slept fitfully, and when it was active, it sought to drain every bit of energy in its user's body. It was a curse of the greatest power, and it was a curse that kept the Uchiha alive during an era of never-ending war.

“We're dying, Izuna,” he whispered softly to the ghost standing next to him, watching as he strung protective wards all over the cave deep within a lonely mountain. “I have to make sure the cycle doesn't repeat itself. The only way the visions won't come true is if I do something about them.” Madara smiled warmly at the old portrait of his family lying limply against the craggy wall. “Then we'll all be together again... all of us.”

He used a piece of bleached white bone to draw a circle where he meant to hang the last ward. Before he could place the paper seal against the rock wall, a cough erupted from his throat and brought him to his knees. The fossil bone and paper both slipped out of his hand as he struggled to breathe. Another minute, and green phlegm mixed with brown blood spilled from his mouth and onto the dusty ground. Madara's pressed his hands against the rock as his chest burned and acid soaked the insides of his mouth. He spewed bile and more blood. His bladder released against his will while the rock wall cut into his hands. After the last of the vomit, phlegm, and blood left his mouth, Madara sat heaving in a pool of his own filth.

“It won't be long now,” he finally rasped. He made no move to rise from the bile and urine. Instead, he stared blankly at the wall as his Mangekyou Sharingan spun lazily in his eye sockets and took his mind far away from his decaying body.

* * *

Something naked and raw rumbled beneath the ocean.

* * *

Hashirama was the first to arrive to the Uchiha compound. Three of the Uchiha clansmen gave him puzzled looks, as the promised meeting between the Hokage and the village's most powerful clan heads wasn't until noon. It had been a busy two weeks, what with all of the village's top shinobi on high alert. Between the tailed beast attacks, the tension at the Wind and Earth fronts, and the disappearance of the Kyuubi, there wasn't a moment to rest. Many of the clan heads and shinobi due to be present at the meeting had just returned to the village the night prior. Sleep was as precious as a gemstone. Hashirama himself had only entered through the northern gates of Konoha less than an hour ago.

And yet, as soon as dawn broke, Hashirama walked from the Hokage Tower to the gates of the Uchiha compound. It was a time when only the store owners, foot patrol, and shinobi finishing up their night shifts were awake. The Naka Shrine was open to the clan all hours of the day and night, but only in the morning for but non-clan members.

Hashirama knew all of this before he'd set out. He knew the foot patrol manned the gates at all times, but the youngest and greenest of the patromen manned the gates between dawn and until early afternoon. Dawn was when the light was at its rawest, when danger was at its lowest. It was when the most seasoned of the Uchiha patrolmen returned home for a few hours of sleep before the midday meetings began. It was when the Naka Shrine lay the emptiest, and it was also when Kaname Uchiha, current head of the Uchiha clan, visited his deceased husband's grave.

And of course, Hashirama knew all of this, so he smiled warmly at the teenagers and asked if it would be too much of a bother if he simply sat inside the beautiful shrine until the meeting time. It wasn't, not according to the lead patrolman who was ten years younger than Hashirama, so after a few more pleasantries, he pattered into the compound, soft as a mouse.

He breathed in the gentle, cold air. The shrine was at the center of the compound. Frost had already began to form over the paved streets. Hashirama quietly marveled the storefronts that slowly but surely began their day. The compound's grocer and locksmith bowed deeply when he walked by, and he returned their respect with a gentle bow of his own head. It was a beautiful winter morning, by all accounts, so beautiful that the pale sky's promise of snow later in the day did nothing to hinder the spirits of the people he passed by.

And yet, the rage in Hashirama's chest grew with each stride.

He gazed at the shrine's bleached white marble and faded brown wood for several minutes before entering. When he arrived at the main hall, he rang the bells adorning dark, paneled ceilings and bowed twice. Then he clapped his hands with the tips of his fingers pointing upwards, whispered his beloved's name, and closed his eyes. He recited prayers of his own clansmen to gods he did not believe, prayers written by his female ancestors, prayers that sought to protect and bless husbands of the Senju in both life and in death.

And Hashirama prayed – he prayed for a man who was neither Senju nor his husband, but these were the recitations of the women who lived before Hashirama, mantras that were passed down by tongue and by book to remind the women of Senju that their husbands would one day return from the thousand wars, whether it be in flesh or by spirit. Ideally, these prayers would be recited within the shrines of the Senju compound by the brides of Senju soldiers, but Hashirama was no man's bride, and Madara Uchiha was no Senju.

So Hashirama did the next best thing.

He didn't trust his ancestors to protect his beloved. He knew his brother hated the man, and since his brother prayed to their ancestors at the Senju shrines, Hashirama came to the only deities guaranteed to favor Madara. And so Hashirama prayed. He prayed at the Naka Shrine, revered shrine of the Uchiha clan, and he prayed for the man he loved with his entire being.

Long ago, under a betel tree in the early hours of dawn, Madara had napped next to Hashirama while Hashirama stared at the roaring river. It was one of those rare times that Madara had gotten sick. Even though he should have been with his clan in their portion of the forest, Madara still made it out to their hiding spot just so he could tell Hashirama that he was still alive. He'd had a slight fever and rheumy eyes that did little to support his claims of good health, but even then, Madara's pride far outweighed his sense of self-preservation. And so Madara had slept – he'd slept underneath their tree while Hashirama kept watch. In any other world, Madara would have been dead, his throat slit while dreaming, but Hashirama wasn't from any other world. In this world, the one they lived in, thrived in, in this world, Hashirama loved one man. Hashirama loved Madara.

And he'd bring Madara home, even if it was against Madara's will.

He prayed, and he prayed, and he continued to pray even when he felt Kaname Uchiha's chakra and steady footsteps ascend the steps to the main hall. He bowed again to finish his prayers. Then he forced a plastic smile on his worn face and turned around to greet the head of the Uchiha clan. “Good morning, Kaname-san!”

“Hokage-sama,” Kaname greeted in return with a slight nod of his head. “The children tell me you arrived quite early.”

“I suppose I did,” Hashirama hummed. “The journey home was seamless from start to finish. I had to thank my good luck, and so I chose to arrive a bit earlier than the rest to pay my respects.”

Kaname didn't question why Hashirama had chosen to pray to the Uchiha's gods instead of the Senju's ancestors, but that was because Kaname knew as well as Hashirama did that Hashirama spoke lies. The Uchiha were illusionists, after all. Kaname had known the second the teenagers had informed him of his arrival, had known that Hashirama had come to pray for the former clan head, the man Kaname and his tribe exiled, the man who would have been king had disease and madness not crippled him.

Kaname didn't question him because he knew Hashirama hated him.

“Our gods are no doubt honored by your generosity,” Kaname reassured. “Since the others won't be arriving for another hour, would Hokage-sama mind joining me for lunch?”

Hashirama's nodded lightly. Once the clan leader turned around and began walking down the steps of the main hall, Hashirama's smile fell and his fingers twitched. He'd counted three hours since he arrived at the gates, two and half of those hours spent standing in front of the gods of the Sharingan. He'd chanted countless prayers and remembered one man's smile. He'd implored foreign gods instead of his own, and for what?

Hashirama pattered behind Kaname Uchiha as softly as a mouse, the plastic smile etched onto his face as he nodded and greeted all of the Uchiha who turned his way as he followed their leader.

 _For what?_ Butsuma jeered in his head. _For a man that gave up on your dream? A man that's bound to die anyway?_

Hashirama clenched his teeth underneath the smile and willed his rage to quell.

* * *

Burnt and scarred, it rose from the depths.

* * *

The meeting began promptly at noon in one of the smaller houses of the shrine. Hashirama sat on a zabuton at one end of the long table, while Kaname sat on the other. Flanked to their sides were various clan heads, while their attendants knelt scattered about the room.

Hashirama began with a brief but thorough account of his visit to Lightning Country and the famed Raikage who was ten years older than Hashirama but looked nothing like it. Hashirama blushed and pouted, earning a few chuckles from the clan heads. The Demon Beetle was safely tucked away in one of the mountains of Kumogakure until Hashirama returned with the Uzumaki princess to help seal the creature.

Hidetaka Hyuuga reported his and Tobirama's joint efforts at the border of River and Wind countries next. They were successful in reigning in the beast, as well as winning the favor of two of Wind's border towns. They hadn't met with the Kazekage as the Konoha shinobi came as aid workers rather than representatives of the Hokage, but the Hyuuga healers and the Senju builders made sure the townspeople of Wind Country knew exactly who they were. Food and alcohol were two of the greatest motivators in their world, and Tobirama and Hidetaka had made sure to bring enough to share with both Rain and Wind.

“Hopefully, the Kazekage will take this as a sign of our utmost respect and genuine humility,” the Hyuuga clan head finished.

“I hope so too,” Hashirama agreed. “He can't keep ignoring where our world is headed. Bonds are just as valuable as gold and iron. He fought to unite his tribes to make peace in the desert. I have no doubt he'll soon see that our efforts are quite the same.”

The other clan heads nodded in agreement. Hashirama's eyes landed on his cousin next. Touka sat far away from the table, near the entrance of the room. She was half bathed in shadows, half obscured by Kosuke Aburame who sat in his line of vision. She looked pale and almost ghost-like, her top knots as severe as the black paste that painted her lips. Her eyes were trained on the tatami floors. Hashirama frowned. “What is it, Touka? Was the land not salvageable in Hot Water?”

Hashirama could taste her fear before she even opened her mouth. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees as Hashirama trained his eyes on his cousin.

“We saw the Kyuubi,” Kosuke interrupted before Touka could speak. Hashirama shifted his eyes to the Aburame clan head. “It rose from the sea,” Kosuke continued, unfazed by the sudden cold and Hashirama's pointed gaze. “As the highest ranked shinobi in the troop, I made the decision to turn around and not engage with the beast as a tsunami was beginning to form. By the time we reached Konoha, missives from Yuga had already reached our outposts, informing us that the coast had been completely decimated. I had calculated correctly that any engagement with the beast would have been useless.”

Hashirama sighed, the ice thawing in his eyes. “You made the right decision.” The other clan heads nodded in agreement. Hashirama's gaze traveled back to his cousin again, hoping her anxieties had been lessened by Kosuke's choice to speak, but she was still stiff and quiet, her eyes boring holes into the floor. Hashirama's frown deepened. “Touka?” He asked again.

“The outpost also received a letter from the Uzumaki clan,” Touka said hoarsely.

The room stilled once more and Hashirama straightened his back ever so slightly. “And?”

“The Princess is dead.”

* * *

Madara blinked and the memories imprinted in his Sharingan slowly disappeared from his vision. He looked down and saw that the filth and urine had long since dried, leaving a rancid stench to mix with the dank air of the cave. He flexed his thin fingers and tired arms before feeling a wetness creep down his cheeks. He touched his face and then stared blearily at the bloodied fingertips.

“Where do you think Uchiha go when they die, Izuna?” Madara asked the apparition softly. “Is it really death? If it is, then why don't our memories die with us? Why is it,” Madara clenched his fists and dug his uncut nails into his dirty and bleeding palms, “that even in death, our memories remain within our eyes?”

The ghost didn't answer him. Instead, it trailed bleached white fingers against the craggy rock wall where Madara had cut his palms.

“Is it punishment?” Madara asked softly. “Did we do something in a previous life? Are we... are we the monsters?” He asked his brother pitifully.

“What do our eyes tell our enemies, Nii-san?” The ghost whispered.

“Lies,” Madara answered.

“And what do they tell us?”

Madara stared blearily at the dried vomit crusted over his tunic. He picked at a globule of dried phlegm. “Death is written in one's actions,” he mumbled. “A reaction to every action. If there are lies... then there must be truths.”

“And what is the truth, Nii-san?”

Madara didn't answer him. He kept picking at the dried phlegm until it crumbled between his fingers.

* * *

“According to the letter, her chakra signatures faded around the time the Kyuubi first attacked Hot Water. They meant to send scouts to search the area, but then the Kyuubi attacked again. By the time we reached Konoha, so did the remainders of her escort. They said she died fighting.”

Hashirama struggled beneath his facade. Until now, Touka's eyes had remained on the floor, as submissive as the rest of the attendants scattered throughout the room. Now, Touka's dark brown gaze was fixed on Hashirama, and he could do nothing but stare into his cousin's apprehensive eyes.

“This morning, we received another letter from them,” she continued. “It was a request for aid. They say Kirigakure attacked them two days ago. The Mist nin were able to level a mountain full of civilians before Uzushio's army was able to fight back. Mist has retreated for now, but Ashina Uzumaki claims that if the island gets attacked one more time, they won't be able to handle it. Uzushiogakure has less than three hundred shinobi in its ranks. Most of the army cannot manipulate chakra. Ashina's requesting we send as many troops as we can to initiate a full-scale evacuation and help prevent any other blitz attacks.”

Takeshi Inuzuka laughed heartily from his seat, as if the whole situation was a drama playing at the newly built theater near the eastern gates. “Should've sent a party to bring the Princess here ourselves. A shame, really, since here we are – thinking the secret powers of the Uzumaki clan could keep her alive long enough for her to get here.”

“No one could have seen this coming,” Tobirama insisted.

“And yet, we should have done our due diligence and sent our own shinobi to make sure she arrived safely,” Susumu Yamanaka countered on Takeshi's behalf. “This was a grave oversight. We never should have assumed they'd be safe from the Kyuubi.”

“It doesn't change what's important,” Naohiro Shimura mused lightly. “We still need the Uzumaki's seals, and even if we can't have a Princess, we can still have her cousins. Their power might not be as raw as hers since they won't be from the main house, but their skills won't be any less polished. We can negotiate a bigger caravan. Nine Uzumaki seal masters for the price of one princess – we can still get what we're owed.”

Shuji Nara scowled but didn't disagree. “They're fully at war with Water Country now, but all we really need from them are their seals. Twenty years ago, we offered the Uzumaki a chance to migrate to Konoha and integrate with us fully. There were no calls for any political marriages as integration would have automatically made their shinobi and seal masters ours – but Ashina denied the request. I was there with my father and Butsuma-sama when we made that offer. Now look at where we are. I say we renegotiate the terms of the current compromise and request that the Uzumaki clan head himself act as our seal master. We can trade him some of our civilians to help with the evacuation in exchange for binding his services to Konoha, but nothing more than that. Their army must be devastated, and ours is too valuable to waste protecting an island that's as good as finished.”

A cheshire grin appeared on the Shimura clan head's face. “The islanders could be evacuated to the beaches of Fire Country, but we can get whatever's left of the ruling clan in Konoha. Imagine... all of the most powerful seal masters on this side of the world... all living within Fire Country's borders.”

Tobirama pursed his lips and took a deep breath before speaking. “Anija,” he began, “how should we proceed?”

Hashirama remained quiet for some time. The rest of the clan heads turned their gazes to their Hokage and waited for him to answer. “I'm sorry she's passed,” Hashirama said with an eerie softness. “I know you worked hard to arrange this accord, Tobirama. At the end of the day, they're our allies, and they have been for hundreds of years. We will help them as we've helped them before... but we will be firm in our demands.” Hashirama looked at Shuji Nara's pensive form. “You're right, Shuji. They should have accepted the offer twenty years ago, but we can't dwell on what's already been done. At the same time, we can't send our soldiers to evacuate an island when it's actively being blitzed by other nations. That would be an act of war from Konoha's side. Therefore, we'll send Fire Country civilians instead. I'll speak to the Fire Daimyo tonight.”

“Priorities have changed,” Naohiro Shimura hummed jovially. “What with Madara still crawling about... and the borders still tenuous.”

The air shifted and Hashirama's face darkened. The other clan heads sat silent while Hashirama locked eyes with the Shimura clan head. “Would you care to elaborate, Naohiro?”

Naohiro flicked a black curl away from his eyes and gave Hashirama a pleasant smile. “Our spies say someone's been currying dissent within the smaller nations. I'm thinking it's Madara since he did threaten to destroy us.”

“We need to focus on the tailed beasts,” Susumu Yamanaka countered easily. “Madara could be dead for all we know, and the smaller nations are always up in arms with children who think they can run entire governments. It's more likely Madara's already wasting away in some dastardly little hut, and now that he's on the run, we know he has no friends to rely on and protect him.”

Hashirama's rage threatened to spill over and bellow at the Yamanaka that Madara _did_ have a friend, and that he was sitting _right here_.

“He's too weak to do anything that will cause actual damage, and he's going to die soon,” Susumu continued. “We know from the Beetle and the Monkey that Madara had no hand in waking them as we didn't find his chakra signatures in either of their vicinities.” Hashirama didn't speak a word about the faint chakra signature in Frost Country. “The Fox is still an anomaly, but Tobirama didn't have the marriage contract drafted until after Madara fell sick and was removed from his position as clan head. He couldn't have known the Princess was coming here.”

Susumu turned to Hashirama and bowed slightly. “I think we should forgo searching for Madara, and move forward with our plans to create the jinchuuriki. Uzushio needs us, and we need the Uzumaki.”

Hashirama felt the budding warmth in Tobirama's chakra before it dissipated into nothingness. “I will handle, Madara,” Hashirama insisted.

“But, Hoka-”

“Madara is-” Hashirama took a deep breath before exhaling slowly. “Madara is sick. He's unstable. Even with consumption, he still possesses the Mangekyou Sharingan. If he dies, it has to be on Konoha's soil.” Hashirama then leveled his gaze on Kaname Uchiha's still form. “He has to be buried here so that the Uchiha can exercise their laws in disposing the eyes so they don't become weapons for our enemies.” Hashirama silently dared Kaname to speak, but the man remained silent, his expression as placid as ever. “Madara will not be left to roam like some kind of beast. He _will_ be brought home, dead or alive.”

* * *

“The truth is that our clan won't survive. They turned their back on me because they believe in a lie, Izuna, but they forget that the Sharingan... The Sharingan always tells the truth. And yours... yours can tell the _future,_ Izuna. The eternal kaleidoscope, our eternal truth, the truth that our clan will never survive under Hashirama's will. We were doomed from the start.”

The ghost remained still and silent next to him as Madara finally got up from his filth and staggered towards the entrance of the cave. “And since our eyes always tell the truth, then maybe I can rewrite it,” Madara muttered softly as he inched closer and closer to the light at the mouth of the tunnel. “If I can't change the future... then I'll just settle for an illusion instead. How about that, Izuna? Wouldn't that be grand? An eternal dream – one where we never part?”

* * *

“Anija-”

“I will speak to the Fire Daimyo tonight,” Hashirama repeated, voice hollow yet gentle. “In the mean time, Tobirama, you will send a missive with the renegotiated terms of the contract. We will strike the marriage clause. The rest of you will pair off to hunt the remaining beasts. Touka will go to Uzushio in three days time to get Ashina's answer. We will dispatch the rescue squads after she sends word of his decision... And I will find Madara.”

The clan heads sat with their backs straight, eyes on the low table. Only Kaname Uchiha met Hashirama's gaze, and it was one as cold as the winter wind that shook the shrine.

* * *

“And my greatest sacrifice will be my everything,” Madara sighed, stepping into the shallow stream. He stripped himself of his dirty clothes in the water, peeling off the wet layers one by one until he was fully exposed. Madara smiled at his reflection in the running water. “For I have nothing,” he whispered. “I have no friends, no family, not even my health. What do I have worth fighting for, little brother?”

The ghost stood at the edge of the stream, staring at Madara's sickly figure with eyeless sockets. The Mangekyou Sharingan spun idly in Madara's eyes.

“Nothing.” Madara answered his own question. “I have nothing.” His dry lips pulled into a manic smile. “So I must have everything. So I'll take everything until I make our eternal dream the only truth... And I'll start with Hashirama.” Madara touched one of Izuna's eyes with wet fingers. “An eye for a life – that is the truth. And I'll start with Hashirama. I'll take the blood from his throat and paint our world bright. An eye for a life, Izuna – an eye for a life.”

* * *

An ugliness stared back in the reflection.

Most of her hair was gone. From the lower left half of her face, down her left armpit, and all the way to her left knee – the skin was burnt black. Her left breast was gone. In its place was a layer of black ink pressed against pink muscle. Where her burnt teeth had fallen out, there now lived sharp canines that bit into her cheeks and lips every time she closed her mouth. Her jaw had reattached itself. She had all ten of her fingers. Her chest rose and fell with each sharp intake of breath, her hands marveling the skin and teeth. But she limped. Something was wrong with the burnt leg, something that hindered her from taking full steps without buckling under her own weight.

And she was hungry. She was so, _so_ hungry.

* * *

“You shouldn't have goaded him,” Tobirama groused.

Naohiro shrugged, grabbing his tweezers off the tray. In front of him lay a piece of the Demon Monkey's flesh. “I only spoke the truth. Madara _is_ a problem... but he's not as much of a problem as all of our other problems. Really, Tobi – how long do you plan on letting him make a fool of himself? Everyone knows. If Hidetaka gets his way, a branch member will end up as your future brother-in-law.” Naohiro didn't bother stifling his laughter. “Is that what you want?”

Tobirama grabbed a small flaying knife and looked down at the piece of the Demon Beetle his cousins had procured for him in Lightning country while accompanying his brother. “As long as it's not Madara or any other Uchiha, I could care less.”

Naohiro scrunched his nose as if there was something distasteful in the air. “But a _branch_ member? Tacky, not to mention, utterly disrespectful of our esteemed Hokage's position. If there should be anyone, then it should be one of the leaders from a neighboring land. Can you imagine? One of the Kazekage's tribe marrying into the Senju clan? A _Mist_ nin? The possibilities are endless. Heck, if I wasn't happily married with a child on the way, _I'd_ marry your brother for the clout.”

Tobirama ignored his friend and instead made quick and efficient cuts to thin layer separating the Beetle's skin from its shell. Naohiro shrugged and moved to play with his own specimen. They worked in silence for the better part of an hour, Tobirama continuing to scrape away at the thin layer until the shell finally began to separate from the flesh and black chakra oozed into the air. Before the chakra could dissipate, Tobirama sealed the energy into an ice jar. He then grabbed a pair of tongs to pull off the rest of the shell from the flesh.

It was only after he'd separated the chakra, the shell, the flesh, and the blood from the specimen that he finally chose to respond to his friend's jibes. “He'll marry for the good of the village. If he marries a man, it'll be someone who believes in the Will of Fire. That man can't be an Uchiha. And yes – even a branch member of the Hyuuga is more respectable.”

Naohiro sighed, dropping his tweezers back into the tray and pulling off his gloves. “I can't disagree with that.”

Tobirama couldn't help but smile. “But you're not wrong – Hidetaka's going about it the wrong way. Anija deserves better. His groom should at _least_ be the heir.”

Naohiro broke into a fit of laughter. “Now we're talking!”

“Soon,” Tobirama promised. He eyed the specimens neatly separated into their different containers and smiled. “It's for the good of the village. All that we do, we do for our home – for our Konoha.”

* * *

She didn't realize what she was eating until she stared into empty eye sockets. Mito blinked, cocking her head to the side as her fingers trembled against loose flesh and cold bone.

_**Still hungry, Little Woman?** _

Mito snapped to attention, eyes darting around to find where the voice was coming from.

 _ **Where... Oh, where could I be?**_ It sang.

Mito's eyes fell back on the creature in her hand, her hunger finally lifting. When the haze cleared, she stared down at the rotting corpse. Stringy, cold flesh hung from her mouth. There was no blood and barely any muscle.

“No...” She croaked.

_**Oh, yes.** _

“No. No, please no. Nononononononono-”

The Kyuubi howled with mirth inside her chest as she threw down the corpse and scrambled back in fear. When she was far enough away from the body, she hunched over and threw up whatever she'd bitten off. She kept throwing up until she couldn't anymore, and after that, she crawled over to the sea she'd risen from and began washing her mouth with the coarse saltwater.

 _ **Welcome to Hell, Little Woman.**_ The creature crooned within her as she sobbed. _**You stole my freedom.**_ Mito balked as the hunger slowly began to return. _**So I steal your humanity.**_

She screamed while the creature laughed. Her stomach burned with a desperate need for _something_ , anything to stave off the hunger.

_**What do humans call it again? Hmm... Ah! I remember now.** _

Mito raged and sobbed, roared as she tried to get the taste of flesh out of her mouth.

_**Cannibal.** _

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mito the Cannibal is _absolutely_ something I've been dying to write. When I was outlining this fic years ago, it was one of the first things I was dead set on including because to this day, it baffles me how cannibalism wasn't a huge problem for jinchuuriki in Kishi's canon.
> 
> A refresher of the characters' ages in this story since Kishi's canon timeline is fucked up and makes zero sense:
> 
> \- Mito is 37  
> \- Madara is 27  
> \- Hashirama is 25  
> \- Touka is 24  
> \- Tobirama is 22
> 
> To those who are subscribed and to those who're just passing by, thank you so much for the lovely reviews and kudos! I appreciate the support, and hope you continue to engage with and enjoy this story. See you next month! :D


	9. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What did Mito seek? Did she seek salvation? Freedom? If she sought freedom, then all she had to do was walk - walk into the ocean and become yet another creature lost to the sea.

“Take me home,” she begged the sea. Raking her nails down her wrists, she spilled blood on the sand and drew the seals of her summons. The ocean barely stirred. She kept cutting and drawing, cutting and drawing, cutting and drawing while her life force drained away, while the sun began to set, until the the squid finally pitied her enough to drag her back into the sea.

* * *

Tobirama finished drawing the last seal as dawn broke across the village. He snapped close the last scroll shut and summoned four water clones. After handing each of the clones a scroll, he pushed them out of the Senju compound and off towards the Senju sentries lined at the four gates protecting Kohona.

The scrolls held instructions for tracking seals, an invention Tobirama had perfected over the last few months. Tobirama had tested the seals on four of his brother's whores before Madara defected. They proved to work exceptionally well – so well that not even his brother detected the faint seals etched into dirt and trees of his secret rendezvous spots.

And now they would track the Uchiha's movements when they came to and from the village.

“You're obsessed,” came a cold voice.

Tobirama's expression hardened at the chakra signature, familiar as it was. “Is that right?” He responded evenly.

He met her gaze, one of her eyes partly obscured by a long, dark bang. Her lips were painted black, and her top knot was clipped with a golden clasp that was in the shape of butterfly. She was in full battle regalia. Tobirama had no doubt about how she would spend the days before her departure to Uzushio. There was guilt to assuage after all.

“No one followed Madara out of the village that night,” Touka reminded him. “We were there, remember? He left alone. No one in that compound followed him the next night either, or the night after that. They denounced his defection in public. You can't keep coming up with new ways to trap them when they haven't done anything to deserve it.”

“If no one's guilty, then why does it matter? They're just seals, Touka. They don't shoot water bullets and death curses. They simply say what they see.”

“It matters because _you_ think it matters,” Touka replied harshly. She sighed heavily, her shoulders drooping in exasperation. “Madara's dying, Tobirama. Susumu was right. Let him die, and leave the Uchiha alone.”

“Susumu only wants to keep the peace long enough to get his hands on a contract.” Tobirama scoffed cruelly. “Did you think about the future of our clan? What happens when the Uchiha start breeding outside of their ranks? Susumu wants a Yamanaka with Sharingan, Touka. He wants a walking abomination for the sake of _power_. He doesn't give a damn about what Madara does to our village!”

Touka didn't flinch. “Nii-sama isn't a fool. He'd never let Susumu pressure the Uchiha to open their bloodline to the other clans.”

“You say that, but have you forgottem he intended to marry the former clan head _himself?_ ”

“And have _you_ forgottem that he left with his dignity intact?” She bit back just as coldly. “This village means more to Nii-sama than Madara ever will. That's why he didn't confess to him that night. He had the betrothal bracelet; he was ready... but he chose us. He chose Konoha, so why do you insist on punishing him still?”

“He hates them as much as I do,” Tobirama enunciated, as if she were a child. “Anija _hates_ them.”

“Nii-sama hates what they did to Madara,” Touka countered. “He hates that they didn't look after him after the truce. He hates that they left him to rot in a bloody hut away from civilization. He hates that they care so little for the man who helped them survive a thousand year war. He does _not_ hate them the way you do – he doesn't hate them for simply existing.”

“They never wanted the truce!” Tobirama snapped. In an instant, he was up from his desk and standing chest-to-chest with his cousin. He looked up into her cold gaze and narrowed his own eyes down to slits. “They never wanted what Madara agreed to,” Tobirama hissed at the taller woman, “and Madara only agreed to it because I killed his brother. If Izuna was alive, we'd still be fighting. Anija would be dead! Madara wouldn't have stopped him from killing himself, and I-”

“You wouldn't have kept Nii-sama's promise,” Touka finished for him. “You would have gone back on his word and slaughtered the Uchiha.” She sneered. “You would have sullied the Senju name.”

“No one else wanted them,” Tobirama groused. “Ask your lover – ask the leader of the Aburame what his elders claimed at the tribunal. The Uchiha were _never_ a part of the plan. They were meant to be slaughtered in battle. We can't be one village – not with them still here.”

Touka gritted her teeth before speaking again. “You're making a mistake.”

“Madara's defection will inevitably fuel dissent,” Tobirama recited the words he'd spoken at the tribunal that commenced hours after Madara had left the village. “And if we don't do something now while Madara is still alive, a civil war will break out soon enough. He needs to be made an example of, Cousin – an example that will stay with the Uchiha until they learn their place.”

They stood in silence for several minutes. A mixture of coldness and hatred permeated the room. The very air in the room seemed to turn to ice as they stood face-to-face. Finally, when it finally occurred to Touka that Tobirama would never budge, she turned to leave.

Tobirama shakily exhaled through his mouth and rubbed the bridge of his nose as his cousin walked away. He squeezed the bridge of his mose and willed the headache to cease.

Instead, Touka stopped two steps short of the sliding doors. “Remember who it is you think you're fooling, Cousin.”

“All Uchiha are fools,” Tobirama sighed wearily. “This isn't something I made up in a fever dream, Touka. A majority of the clans agree. We've spoken about it at length. You yourself have killed enough Uchiha to know that they're the biggest tribe of fools in Fire Country.”

“Not the Uchiha, Cousin – Nii-sama,” she whispered.

Tobirama froze.

“Remember, it's the god of shinobi you think you're fooling. If you think he'll let you get away with it, just remember the night beneath the banyan tree. He knew we were coming. He knew you were following him – and he did nothing. He did nothing because shame kept him in line, but there's no shame here. The Uchiha helped to found this village, the man who gave it its name is our Hokage's beloved, and the clan you loathe so much is the very clan that our Hokage almost killed himself to protect. So remember that – remember that while you and your little tribunal play your games, Cousin. Remember that when the god of shinobi asks you what you've done – remember that you didn't just spit on the Uchiha, but on Hashirama Senju as well.”

* * *

It was a child soldier who found her body washed up on Uzushio's shores. Mito knew as soon as she felt their unmalleable chakra shimmer in the coldness of the dawn. His screams only confirmed her assertions as he yelled for his squad leader to come quickly. She felt the vibrations of hurried footsteps through her skin, heard the gasps of shocked soldiers, and finally, recognized a familiar thrum of chakra.

Mito's scarred lips quirked into a smile. Kishou Nijima's unmalleable chakra burned with despair in the cold, winter morning. She slipped into unconsciousness before she could call out to her friend.

* * *

It the land of Whirlpools, the strongest of the soldiers piled bodies onto the beach, separated them into groups of ten, strung the corpses tight with twine, and covered the mounds with blocks of wood. At midnight, the piles were set alight. A hundred pyres burned through the night, every night since the men of Mist landed on their shores. The bodies burned until the break of dawn. When the last of the flames died away with the early winter morning, the youngest of the soldiers came with shovels to the smoking piles. They scooped the ashes and remains into burlap sacks and later emptied them into the ocean.

In the land of eddies, a mountain full of civilians was destroyed before its soldiers could reach it. Three thousand died under the shadow of a pale, white moon. Many more died when the army finally arrived and realized their soldiers were no match against the shinobi of the Bloody Mist.

 _ **How devastating,**_ the beast drawled inside of her as she peered tiredly at the ceiling above her. _**Poor Uzushio, wrestled into submission by humans masquerading as monsters. Does Little Woman feel bad?**_ He jeered softly within her mind. _**Poor Little Woman.**_

Mito scratched at the scarring on her chest. _ **'Enough**_ ,' she barked mentally.

The beast snorted. _**The ink won't hold for long.**_ Then he became silent for several seconds before breaking into a string of soft chuckles. _**I can set Uzushio on fire. An eternal pyre, Little Woman.**_

Mito had smelled the burnt flesh in the air, and tasted the smoke on her tongue before she'd slipped into unconsciousness.

 _ **'What have they done?'**_ She asked the creature resting in her chest.

_**What do you think?** _

_**'Tell me – I know you want to.'** _

It chuckled once more, basking in her agony. _**Oh, just a little of this, and a little of that. Hmm... The clowns on the beach have counted five thousand corpses so far. So many more left to burn... Half your army is gone as well, but they've captured some of the Mist men. Your clan... they're oozing with fear.**_ Suddenly, the Kyuubi barked with laughter, and her blood hissed with the corrosive chakra coursing through it. _**DELIGHTFUL!**_ It crowed with mirth. _**Your clan is preparing to flee to where your fiance is... and leave the rest of the island to die!**_

Just then, Genki burst in with three servants trailing frantically behind him. “Cousin!” He bellowed at Mito's prone form.

“Cousin,” she replied hoarsely.

“She's awake! Why did no one tell me she was awake!”

“Because you woke her up,” Yoringa Ugaki grumbled, entering the small room with Nijima and two of the three children she'd sent back to Uzushio. Ugaki banged his booted foot on the wooden floor, and the servants dispersed immediately, closing the heavy doors behind them.

Mito's eyes warmed at the sight of the boy and the blonde girl. The blonde girl sported a wooden leg where her flesh leg used to be, while the boy's sleeves were pinned neatly to the stumps where his arms used to be. She hoped the green-haired girl was nearby and safe as well.

Her former lieutenants pulled up chairs next to her sickbed while the children stood sentry at the door. Genki, never the one for formalities, took one of her frail wrists in his hands and kissed the bruised knuckles. She felt warm tears trickle down her face and gently squeezed back.

“How?” He whispered brokenly. “We thought... we thought you'd died! Your chakra disappeared! The children said you fought the beast _alone_. What... what happened Mito?”

Mito didn't know how to tell her cousin that she did die that night, and whatever remained was now simply a prison housing an old beast. Instead of talking, Mito decided to show them. She tugged on her hand, and Genki shakily released his grip. Then, she pulled the covers off her chest and undid the strings holding together the soft tunic.

She raised her bony arms in the air. Genki and Ugaki helped her into a sitting position. Her eyes then landed on the children standing near the door. She nodded her head once, and the children quietly shuffled over to her bedside, standing behind Nijima.

Then, she began undoing the bandages covering her neck and her chest.

“Mito!” Genki gasped.

Mito grunted, and Nijima put a calloused hand on Genki's shoulder before he could say anything else. Genki gaped as layers of medicated bandages fell away in Mito's lap to reveal the ghastly image below.

Raw pink mixed with charred black – the left side of Mito's body was a network of burnt skin and pulsating, pink muscle. She took her left hand and placed it over where her left breast used to be, where her seal now pulsed with corrosive chakra.

“It's in here,” she hissed. The Kyuubi chuckled in her head.

“No...” Genki moaned.

Mito smiled sadly and turned her gaze to Nijima. “You saw my teeth.” Nijima remained silent while the children looked fearfully at her form.

“How?” Ugaki asked softly.

“The Kraken,” she wheezed, aching to sleep again. When they noticed her begin to sway, they helped lie her down on the bed before pulling the covers over her exposed chest. “I had no choice,” she mumbled tiredly. “It wants to destroy us – destroy me.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if those bastards set it loose,” Genki said scathingly. “They wanted the clan first, and when we wouldn't budge, they asked for a bride. Now the island's half-destroyed, they think you're dead, and no one wants to send aid! Who's the real monster here?”

The fatigue transformed into a deep, dark hatred. “How many?”

“Five thousand so far,” Ugaki sighed, confirming the Kyuubi's words.

“Who was it?”

“Kiri,” Genki answered. “They blitzed one of the mountains the night after the Kyuubi first attacked Hot Water. Most of the army was guarding the sea, with a few troops scattered throughout the valleys. They... They jumped from giant frigatebirds. They slaughtered the civilians from top down, so we didn't even get the signal to move until they reached the base at the bottom of the mountain.”

“They want to wipe out the whole island!” Genki spat, fuming with rage. “The clan head called for aid, and do you know what those bastard Senju sent, Mito? _Another contract!_ They said that because you're dead, the original terms of the accord are moot! We asked for _help_ , and they told us they'd send us a few civilian ships if the clan agreed to pledge its loyalty to Fire Country! We can't evacuate an entire island on a few fucking ships!”

The Kyuubi cackled ruthlessly inside of her skull while her blood hissed beneath her skin. “And what did our clan head say, Cousin?” Mito inquired hoarsely, a hunger beginning to gnaw at her insides once again.

“He said yes,” came Nijima's cold voice instead. He gave her a cruel smile, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Ashina Uzumaki has agreed to the accord. The Senju are sending _insects_ to carry Ashina, the main house, and six of the branch houses of the Uzumaki clan to Konoha tomorrow morning. We're to receive evacuation vessels after they arrive in Konoha.”

 _ **One seeks to destroy, while the other seeks to possess**_ , the beast crooned in her head. **_Tell me, Little Woman – what's the difference?_**

“And what does you Commander General have to say about this?” Mito barked, eyes flashing to Genki's enraged form.

“We've converted our naval ships for evacuation,” he bellowed. “You think me a fool, Cousin? You think I'd let our people perish?”

“And Ashina?” She hissed, the color red bleeding into her sclera. “You'd let him get away with this?”

Genki grabbed her by the neck and hoisted her body up. Nijima jumped to grab him, but Ugaki pushed him back. “You think I haven't thought of that?” He ground out, spittle flying across her scarred face. “You don't think I've dreamed of gutting him alive since –“ He gaped, unable to finish his sentence while Mito struggled beneath his powerful grasp. He took a deep breath and flared his nostrils before releasing her from his grip. She fell back against the pillows, and instantly Ugaki and Nijima were pulling the blanket over her chest.

Tears streamed down Genki's face as his lips trembled. “He cursed me. Its been burned into my thigh since before you were born, but the night you were due to depart... He added another layer. I couldn't kill him, but I knew I could at least begin putting the coup in motion, but that night... that night he came into my barrack and he made me _bow,_ Mito. He made me bow down while he used a knife to cut open my trousers and carve another seal into the cursed mark I _already_ had. Then he made me choose three children to sacrifice. He told me he wanted to teach us a lesson.”

Mito stared at her cousin, a seventy year old man who should have been the head of the Uzumaki clan, but had instead ended up in the barracks of the orphan army. He'd never told her how that came to be, and in the twenty-six years she'd known him, he never dropped a single clue.

But Mito could guess – she could put the puzzle pieces together and see the whole picture, the story he kept so near to his heart.

Genki wiped the tears from his eyes and the snot from his nose, his dark brown face warped with fatigue. He let out a soft chuckle that disappeared as quickly as it had come. “But he didn't know about the weapons. You could have done anything with the seals and your swords, but I wanted to you to be able to protect yourself. You deserved that much. When they told me you were stripped of everything...” Genki flared his nostrils once more, his face hardening with every word. “I gave the children the weapons to give to you when you needed them the most. I thought that would mean a fight with a bandit, or your new husband getting handsy without your permission, but a tailed beast? Never in a million years,” he whispered, dropping his head in shame. “Never...”

“I'm alive,” she said softly. “I'm alive, Cousin.”

Genki raised her head and stared long and hard into her eyes. “And still our commander.”

The Kyuubi growled in her head and she bore her teeth, exposing the vulpine fangs to the men and children. “Is that so?”

“What more do we have?” Ugaki told her. “With the Kraken, we can evacuate twice as many. A coup would be useless now, and Ashina is due to leave tomorrow. There _is_ no commander left to lead. There's no reason for you to hide when we need as many able hands as we can get.”

Mito gulped thickly. “You'd let someone like me lead your army?”

“We let an old man with no soul regain control for less than a week and lost five thousand people,” Ugaki drawled before straightening his shoulders and bowing his head. “There's no greater honor than to follow the human sacrifice.”

 _ **Jinchuuriki**_ , sang the beast and her banshees. Mito shoved the blankets from her lap and pulled her tunic on. She tied the strings as fast as her fingers let her, and when she was done, she rose to her feet.

“Mito, what –,” Nijima began.

“-bring Ashina to the cliff at dawn,” Mito barked. “Before the children remove the ashes. Bring him to the cliff overlooking the beach where he married off my fourth sister.”

With that, she limped away from the bed. The children rushed to open the door, watching her intently as she stepped barefoot into the hall. She ignored the stares of the other soldiers, looked straight ahead until she reached the open door. They were by the sea, in a barrack surrounded by smoking piles of flesh.

No one stopped Mito when she walked towards the water.

* * *

_**What does the Little Woman seek? Does she seek salvation? Freedom? If Little Woman desires freedom, then all she has to do is walk. Walk, Little Woman. Walk into the ocean so that I can rise – so I can feast.** _

“It's yours,” she said out loud, watching the waves beat violently against the rocks. Smoke and fire obscured the stars above as the island was bathed with the stench of burning fat.

 _ **Everything is mine!**_ It hissed.

“My humanity,” she mumbled.

_**I have it!** _

“My body,” she continued, “in exchange for your power.”

The creature went quiet for several minutes. The beginnings of a storm brewed in the sky, sending flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder through the clouds of smoke and fire. She could sense that the whirlpools had accelerated withthe incoming storm, growing larger and deadlier by the minute.

 _ **Now, why would I do that?**_ It teased from within her chest. **_Little Woman marked for death... Why should I entertain her before her demise?_**

“Because I'm not dying today... and I won't die for a long, long time. My blood is my enemy, but it's yours as well.”

The creature sneered. _**It'll only be worse for them the longer I'm here, Little Woman. I'll hunt down every Uzumaki and its descendant until your people are nothing but relics of the past. I can do that, Little Woman.**_

“You can also fight,” she stated. “You can hunt humans and read minds – I can't do that. I'll give you my body, Beast.” She remembered a rotting corpse in her hands. “I'll even eat flesh.”

 _ **But you already did**_ , the Kyuubi taunted.

“Live flesh,” Mito hissed. “Help me save my people – and I'll feast on living, breathing human beings.”

_**Little Woman would sacrifice her will for the clan that betrayed her?** _

“It's not for the clan,” she snapped. “The clan is nothing! The clan was always... nothing.” Mito gulped, blinking tears away from her hollowed eyes. She thought about a woman who birthed five daughters to a clan that thirsted only for power, a clan that didn't care for any woman beyond her given purpose. She thought about refugees who stopped at the shores of Uzushio instead of moving on to Fire Country, the war orphans that made up most of her army, the cursed seal on her chest that burned when she tried to fight back, the cursed seal that doomed her cousins on the beaches of Hot Water, the cursed seals that wouldn't let Genki fulfill his birthright, a woman with black skin and black hair from a faraway land that birthed five daughters to tyrants, a woman who died by her own hands, a woman caged on an island meant to shield, a woman who was her mother, her dead mother.

“These people did nothing to deserve a clan like mine to lead them to their deaths,” Mito whispered. “They deserve better than that.”

_**I thought you foolish, Little Woman, but you're much worse than that. Reaching for something that doesn't exist... A clown, Little Woman – that is what you are.** _

“Is that a yes?”

Mito felt the tell-tale sting of corrosive chakra begin to overtake her skin. The red and black energy crackled as burnt skin healed and pink muscle became leathery hard. Threads that held her stitches together popped and hissed before falling away. Long, dull hair touched the back of Mito's knees. The weariness and agony that punished her dissipated with the slow hiss and spit of the demon's energy. In their place was a gnawing hunger.

_**Have you ever let your power overtake your senses, Little Woman? Bitten into the neck of a fleeing human as you destroyed their land? Do you want to know what happened to the nineteen other jinchuuriki who came before you, what I did to them and their people after I finally escaped my prisons of flesh?** _

At the edge of the water, looking out into the sea, stood a creature bathed in black and red chakra. Energy shifted and swirled around the creature's skin and hair, creating tiny whirlpools on its body. The creature's maw was pitch black, much like its pupils. Red sclera surrounded dark pits. Behind the host's head, strands of red hair undulated steadily in the shape of nine, distinct tails.

 _ **I'll tell you,**_ hummed the beast beneath her breast. ** _I'll tell you what happened to little girls a thousand years ago, what happened to a little girl from Lightning, what happens to little girls now. I'll tell you what the shinobi of distant lands think of the Uzumaki seals, and I'll show you the remnants of broken civilizations who thought they were better than my kind. I'll show you true power, Little Woman._**

Mito felt as if she were being embraced, her banshees singing folk songs of her youth as the creature enveloped her in bleeding red power.

_**All you have to do is give me your soul.** _

She did – and so fell the rain.

* * *

“Kosuke,” Touka called. “Something's wrong.”

He flickered over to where she stood on the giant beetle and peered at the shores of Uzushio. “Those are funeral pyres. They don't have enough space to bury all the bodies.”

“No, not the pyres.” She pointed at the large gathering of people standing below a low cliff, one that opened up to the sand instead of the dark water. “What are they waiting for?”

“Kosuke-sama!” Called one of Aburame attendants. Kosuke and Touka turned around to see the shinobi leap from his beetle and onto Kosuke and Touka's. He bowed deeply before handing them a red scroll. “A seagull just dropped this into our sensor's hands. We thought it was a trick, but when we tried to lower our beetle to get a closer look, something snapped from the water and almost pulled us under,” rambled the shinobi. “We have to turn back!”

Kosuke opened the scroll and read its contents while the shinobi continued to panic. “At ease,” Touka hissed when she'd finally had enough. “What is it?” She asked the shorter man.

“A retraction,” Kosuke Aburame said softly. “They've retracted the call for help – the Uzumaki won't be coming with us.”

Touka swiftly turned around and pulled on the reigns of the beetle. Once it stopped, the other beetles followed suit until all ten creatures fluttered in stasis in the early hours of dawn. Touka pulled out her hunting scope and trained the lenses on the cliff and beach.

There, in the early rays of dawn, Touka saw an old man get brought down to his knees just before the edge of the cliff. His hands seemed to be tied behind his back, and behind him stood three men, each wearing rough, black armor. They yielded swords and weapons that were only found on the coasts of the continent and beyond. Behind them stood more men and women, and even children, all clothed in black armor and varying helmets emblazoned with red whirlpools.

Touka watched as a tall man with long red hair called to the people on the beach. A crowd was forming as islanders gathered to stare at the prisoner kneeling at the ledge.

Touka watched as a soldier with long red hair brandished his sword and raised it in the air. Many in the crowd cheered the soldier as he waved his blade around. She couldn't make out the words escaping his lips, but knew that they resonated with the islanders below, though the rest of the army stayed eerily still. Touka let out a harsh breath when the older man finally stepped back, joining the front row of soldiers.

Touka and her party heard the distant bang of a gong ring three times. Touka breathed shakily as she watched the army split down the middle and make way for a tall woman with half her face burnt off. Touka's breath hitched in her throat. Flaming red hair twisted into two, braided buns. Paper seals hung from each bun pinned to the sides of the tall woman's head, pierced with black needles that glittered like jewels in the early rays of dawn. The woman wore the same black armor as the other soldiers, but instead of a helmet, she wore an ivory comb between the braided buns. In her leathery hands, she carried an iron sword. Dark red paste painted the buds of her lips, and though Touka couldn't quite pinpoint the exact color of her eyes, she knew that they were as dark and never-ending as the whirlpools rolling beneath the Aburame's beetles.

But she didn't walk. Touka rubbed her eyes and shook her head from side to side before focusing her gaze on the scope again. The woman did not walk; she limped. She limped as if she carried the burden of a thousand soldiers on her shoulders, her gait as heavy as the iron sword held in her hands.

Touka stilled as she realized who the woman was, why she limped so heavily, why the lower left half of her face was charred and black, while parts of her left jaw were exposed to the elements, baring teeth that were a mixture of human and beast.

And Touka knew then that the tall and scarred woman knew _exactly_ who she was, and why she had dropped the missive in the hands of the Aburame clan. Dark eyes peered straight into Touka's hunting scope, and she almost stumbled back before realizing that she was far from the shore and the sentence about to be carried out.

“Touka?” Kosuke called softly.

Touka didn't move. She watched as the woman limped to the ledge where the old man knelt and raised her sword with both her hands. The woman bellowed something to the spectators, and Touka watched as the armored soldiers shouted with her, watched as the sword came down and sliced the old man's head from his shoulders before sending it tumbling down to the crowd below.

Touka watched as the crowd below stomped the head to bits while the the sun shone over the horizon.

“The Princess,” Kosuke began.

“-is alive,” Touka finished thickly for him.

“She's not just a princess,” the attendant said shakily. “She's their-”

“What does the letter say, Kosuke?” She interrupted the attendant, eyes still fixed on the scene up ahead.

“That Uzushio is no longer under the rule of Ashina Uzumaki,” he recited.

“And who rules Uzushio now?”

“Commander General Mito Uzumaki,” he sighed, “lord commander of Uzushio's army and last princess of the Uzumaki clan – she who defeated the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re at the halfway mark! Thanks so much for reading, everyone! See you next month! :D


	10. Scion

**_Four weeks later_ **

Pressed beneath the loose purple kaftan laid a handful of dried spider lilies. When Mir Syed1 walked down the long, winding corridors of the Mizukage's palace, dried stems and petals would often shake loose from their perch against his chest and grace the cement floor below. Oftentimes, a hunter nin would find a loose petal lying on the ground and choose to ignore it. Rarely would anyone ever touch the dried flowers, but if they did, Mir Syed would know. They were his flowers, after all. Dead or alive, a spider lily was a spider lily, and Mir Syed carried them close to his heart.

In the village shrouded in thick, unforgiving mist, Mir Syed stood stiff and straight in front of an old man with deep gray hair and one dead eye marred by a thick, black scar. The Mizukage was four times Mir Syed's age, and a foot shorter than him. With the dead eye, loose-fitting clothes, and indifferent expression, Byakuren looked as if he could be any farmhand's grandfather, lucky to have lived long enough to see his eightieth birthday. On the smaller islands of their archipelago, a man of Byakuren's age would be eternally grateful that his village and his grandchildren had been spared during the purges, happy even that he and his family were instead thrown into one of the lower castes established by the new government after the purges had ended.

And yet, if anyone who wasn't from the Land of Water asked Mir Syed who this old man was, he would simply pity them as poisonous mist seeped into their skin and burned them alive from the inside out. If anyone asked why an old man who was blind in one eye was sitting on an oakwood throne, Mir Syed would merely turn away as they died their true death. He didn't like to see others suffer. Death was to be respected, and its execution meant to be quick, silent, and efficient. Blood was for theatrics, and Mir Syed had no inclinations for that kind of entertainment.

“Bring me her head.”

Mir Syed bowed deeply before answering. “As you wish.”

“With her hair intact,” the Mizukage barked, baring sharp, yellow teeth darkened with age. “I want to hang it from the main arch. I want her skin to peel off and red threads to shower the main entrance so my successors will remember – they'll remember never to let the red-haired demons live.”

“And so it shall be done.”

Byakuren's living eye stared into Mir Syed's soul, picking apart what was left of him. “Make me proud,” the Mizukage whispered, blade-like teeth disappearing beneath wrinkled lips while an air of calm descended upon the main hall. “Destroy Uzushiogakure, and see to it that _everyone_ knows.”

If anyone were to ask Mir Syed who he would have become had he not become a shinobi, Mir Syed would tell them that his life laid with the spider lilies, just like his ancestors' lives before him. In another world, he would have grown and harvested the flowers, and then traded them for silk and sweets. He would have lived out his days in his lakeside village where the rain never seemed to end, married to a man from a neighboring village, raising one of the many orphans of the mountain valleys, and then died a simple, old man.

But no one asked, and Byakuren only ever ordered. In the Land of Water, even lower caste offspring were thrown into the academy to train with upper caste prodigies. The Kiri nin would affectionately call his people 'shark bait,' as if a lower caste child's fate was their gods' greatest attempt at comedy. When Mir Syed had entered the academy at the age of seven, the same was expected from him – a play in four acts, a comedy of errors that would lead to his eventual demise and enough blood to color the mist red.

And yet, Mir Syed had never been one for games. He loved spider lilies and his home where his family lived. He placed dried spider lilies beneath his kaftans with small threads of chakra, and walked the village hidden in the bloody mist like the wraith that he truly was, a creature simultaneously existing in two spaces, a shinobi of Kirigakure, but also a creature of the lowest caste, a lakeside flower harvester, a creature that should have been slaughtered in the graduation exams but couldn't be.

Mir Syed quietly walked down the labyrinthine corridors of the Mizukage's palace, dead spider lilies trailing his path. On his foot hummed a red brand he shared with other members of Byakuren's house that weren't related to him by blood, an agreement between the Mizukage and his shinobi, an agreement between the Mizukage and _himself_ after he slaughtered most of his classmates to ensure his survival and victory in the graduation exams. Mir Syed hated games as much as he hated himself, but Byakuren only ever played one game, and that game was force. Mir Syed would bring back the head of the Uzumaki woman and force yet person under the Mizukage's control. He would destroy the tiny island and its hodgepodge of a populace because that was the life he'd been handed and the only one he was allowed to live.

On an island on the southwestern end of the archipelago known as the Land of Water, there lived a family of spider lily harvesters. That family, and many others like them, barely encountered shinobi, but when they did, they feared for their lives. Mir Syed's family feared him just as much as they feared the Mizukage, and that's why, if anyone ever asked him why he followed the orders of a soulless old man, he'd tell them that he was just as soulless, that he had no home to return to, and that his life on earth was merely suffering incarnate. In his heart, maybe he could one day return to the island of his birth, but in this life, in this world that Mir Syed lived in, home was servitude and a dank room in a row of other dank rooms where Byakuren's preferred shinobi lived. The only other home he could think of was the afterlife once Death embraced him. It was perhaps the only place that would truly forgive him.

It was also where Mir Syed knew he was going to end up after his battle against the red-haired woman of Whirlpool, the woman who bested the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. He could feel it in his chest, Death's steady song.

* * *

In the weeks since she'd returned to the island, Mito had never once felt human – until now.

She'd fought a beast with one foot at Death's door, had publicly executed her clan leader, and now prepared her troops to defend her island. She was a machine, a creature who existed solely for the good of her people. Her humanity had died when she put the bloated, rotting flesh of a human corpse in her mouth. She was a monster, and she accepted that.

But did monsters bleed? The Kyuubi was a creature of fire and pure energy, a god in its own right, something that bled less and burned more. And yet, here she was, bleeding into her sheets, as if she were twelve and naïve. Did monsters bleed with the moon? Mito bit her lip, trying to remember if the Kyuubi had bled when they'd fought. The creature's mouth was full of sharp teeth and acid, and its eyes were rheumy and yellow with black slits down the middle, but for the life of her, Mito couldn't remember if the creature had actually bled at any point in their struggle.

Mito stared at the dark circle of blood and sighed. Though she inherited some of the creature's sharp teeth to replace the ones she's lost when it'd broken her jaw and burned half her body, it seemed as though the creature hadn't _fully_ robbed her of her humanity. The cramps started to gnaw at her insides, and she realized that for once, the gnawing wasn't from the beast's hunger, but from the sheer fact that she'd been born with a womb. She scoffed at the irony of it all.

_**If Little Woman wasn't such a coward, she'd feast on her servants' flesh to stave off her hunger.** _

Mito sneered and hoisted herself off the meager bedroll. Since she'd arrived back home, she'd been eating raw fish and the occasional fruit with her soldiers, while quietly consuming raw beef and chicken under the dead of night. She would have taken rotten rat meat if she could, but the second time Mito attempted this, the beast snarled within her and had her cough up fistfuls of blood and bubbling, red acid. The first time had been a lesson, the beast had relayed, punishment for imprisoning it inside of her, but no more. The beast would only take fresh, raw meat. For now, it allowed her to take animals who were meant for the soldiers' stew, but not forever. She owed the demon a meal. She'd promised it that she'd follow through when the time was right. In the mean time, she bit back her tongue and ate what she could, and hoped her body didn't collapse on her before she could guarantee Uzushio's safety.

The beast chuckled inside of her. A diet of raw foods and water did nothing for a soldier's body, and so the hunger persisted.

Someone knocked heavily on the wooden door. Mito threw her blankets over the darkened red spot on the bedroll, and pulled a tunic off the floor. She wrapped the tunic around and between her legs like a makeshift loincloth, and tied the sleeves at her waist. Then she pulled a long, heavy petticoat over her hips and threw a shawl over her shoulders. She limped over to the door and opened it to reveal Ugaki.

“It's early, but I wanted to speak with you before breakfast was served.”

Mito nodded and gestured him to follow her to the sparse rug and low table. She eased herself down slowly to the floor so she wouldn't irritate her bad leg. Mito snorted inwardly. The beast had healed her most life-threatening injuries, but it wouldn't do anything for her old wounds, and certainly nothing for her ruined face and the burnt leg. She supposed the beast never would, not even when she gave it living, human flesh to taste. After all, there was always a price to pay for victory.

Ugaki sat down on the opposite side of the old table. He didn't waste any time pulling out a small scroll from his breast pocket. He laid out the thin paper on the wooden table while Mito's eyes followed the thin script and rough lines.

“I've done as you've instructed and sent out two, three-man squads to the location you noted.” Ugaki pointed to a black dot some inches from the rough outline of their island. “They'll be on standby until you call for them. We have three of your squid with them, so the minute you give the signal, they'll move.”

“And the scouts?” She asked, her eyes still fixed on the scroll.

“We've sent three Fuinjutsu specialists to Lightning, and three more to the borders of Fire. Wave has already agreed to take in refugees, as have some of the smaller islands in the southwest. The Lightning trio just arrived at the mainland, and are making haste to the Raikage's palace. I have the utmost faith in their ability to convince the governing counsel to open their doors. Most of our people cannot manipulate chakra, so the issue of bartering a bloodline limit shouldn't arise.”

She nodded and closed the scroll. As he tucked the thin roll back into his breast pocket, Mito suddenly thought of an old crone.

“Don't let the servants bring her plate today,” Mito said abruptly. “I'll do it.”

Ugaki waited several seconds before nodding. “As you wish, but I have to ask – what good will that bring?”

“None,” Mito admitted, “but I have to remind her that we're still bound. If I can't escape my heritage, then she can't escape the legacy she helped create.”

* * *

“I can't find him,” Tobirama groused, while staring at his cousin's back. Touka swung her shinai and hit the dummy again.

“I've looked everywhere,” Tobirama continued hollowly. “I checked the slums, the border posts, and every hiding place we had as children. I can't find him, Touka. What if he finally left to find Madara?”

Touka didn't answer him. Instead, she repositioned her stance and now aimed her shinai at the dummy's legs.

“What if he decides to bring Madara back?” Tobirama seethed, panic edging his words. “Now that the Uzumaki woman has the Demon Fox, the only way to extract the beast from her would be to put her under a powerful illusion. Only Madara can create one powerful enough to control her.” Tobirama balled his hands into fists and glared at Touka's back. “He'll use it as an excuse to bring Madara back into good graces. I wouldn't be surprised if Madara was the one who loosened the beast in the first place. He leaves, and tailed beasts all over the continent start to lose control? Too convenient to be a coincidence. He has to be responsible.”

Touka's last strike snapped the dried bamboo stick in the middle. She threw the broken shinai on the grass and stretched her limbs.

“I can't find him, Touka,” Tobirama repeated, this time with barely restrained rage.

In turn, Touka walked away without a single word.

* * *

Her grandmother was sequestered in a one-room hovel behind the barracks, as all of the royal homes had been converted either into hospitals or kitchens for the ever-growing population of islanders coming down from the mountains and into the valleys and beaches.

After Ashina's execution, Mito had offered the nobility one night to relinquish their ancestral homes and fields. Ashina had paid for their crime of negligence, but not for their crime of hoarding much-needed wealth and space.

Her grandmother was the last noble removed from her royal home. After Mito's soldiers had sent the the main house's Uzumaki and servants to the tents on the beach, she'd met the old crone face-to-face in the entryway of the great house.

They hadn't spoken. Instead, Mito gestured Genki to take the old woman away. It had been weeks since the encounter, and the only people allowed near the old woman were the soldiers and servants who brought her, her meals. No one else was allowed to see her – no one else except Mito.

“If you'd done as you were told, this wouldn't have happened.”

Mito startled. She was still outside of the hovel, a tray of food in her hands. The old woman's powerful voice carried easily through the enchanted door. Mito shook off her anxiety and balanced the tray in one hand before undoing the seals on the door and pushing it open.

The old woman sat on her bed, a book opened on her lap. Mito kicked the door closed, and limped over to the old woman's bed. She put the tray down next to the old woman's still form before moving to grab one of the only two chairs in the hovel. She stationed the chair in front of the old woman and sat down heavily.

“And what do you mean 'by this?'” Mito chuckled, kneading the unburnt flesh of her bad leg.

“Don't tell me the beast took your vision as well. You look absolutely fiendish.”

“But you haven't even looked at me, Grandmother,” Mito teased. “Didn't you know? I'm the most beautiful demon on the island.”

When the old woman finally raised her eyes, Mito gave her a toothy smile. The crone merely blinked, her brown eyes as lifeless as Mito's. The beast chuckled inside Mito's head while the old woman's gaze turned to Mito's long, red hair. The dullness of the red persisted even after the sacrifice, but ironically, it had grown much stronger. As Mito had grown older, her hair had fallen out quicker, but after she'd accepted the beast into her heart, she found that not even the early morning strokes of her comb could hurt the strands of red thread.

“Cursed,” the old woman said softly, as if reading Mito's mind. “Your red is cursed.”

Mito snorted and continued to knead at the aching flesh of her bad leg. “But now I'm the greatest weapon the Uzumaki have ever known – isn't that what you wanted, Grandmother? A princess that could live up to her family name?”

The old woman's eyes narrowed down to slits. “Family? You know nothing of family.”

“Then what about country?” Mito countered easily. “Freedom? Ashina never taught us any of that either, but I guess a beast for a teacher will have to do. Today it's Kirigakure, and yesterday it was Kumo. Maybe tomorrow it'll be the Land of Fire, but no one knows why-”

The old crone averted her eyes and didn't speak, but Mito caught the slight change in her body language. Was it hesitation?

 _ **Fear**_ , the Demon Fox crooned inside her.

“-except you,” Mito finished softly.

The old woman had shifted her gaze to the dim light of the lamp by her bed. Mito peered at her face and tried to read the wrinkles and liver spots. “All these years, we were taught our seals and our hair were prized possessions the continents would kill for,” Mito murmured softly, following the curve of the old woman's face, “but we don't even have a bloodline limit, and our family's sold off brides to the greater continent, so what are they really after? They've picked us off individually in the past, killed ancestors who had no interest in warfare, and they've waged war with the island. Some have even managed to enslave some of us, and rape others. Now they seek genocide. You can steal seals from anyone, and brides carry chakra reserves to their husbands' homes. Hair can be cut and sold, but is it enough to kill?”

“Men have killed for less,” the old woman retorted.

“But they kill _us_ for a reason,” Mito insisted. “Why?”

“You should have let Ashina go.”

“No,” Mito replied,“I should have killed him sooner.”

The old woman took a sharp breath and flared her nostrils. She turned her gaze back to Mito and glared at her placid form. Mito looked at the rage hidden beneath the veil of wrinkles and liver spots, the piercing hatred packed into the tiny space the old woman called a body.

“Cursed!” The old woman spat. “You seek answers? There it is! This blood, this hair, it's all cursed. Wretched girl, your mother should have aborted you like we told her too. Another girl, just girls, not a _single_ heir. Cursed! _Just like those seals!_ ”

* * *

In Konoha, beneath an old banyan tree, Hashirama recited the names of nine tailed beasts. When he gathered them all, he would present one to each elemental nation, while the rest would be locked underneath his sleeves. To establish his vision of peace, he needed their power.

But he needed Madara as well. Peace was nothing if it wasn't shared with the one he loved the most, but he knew he couldn't keep him in the public eye, not after everything. In the end, their love would have to be hidden in the shadows because the land needed Harashima at his best – and he was only ever at his best when Madara was around.

He wouldn't hurt him, of course. He loved Madara, but Madara was a force of nature. Could a hurricane be trapped in a glass jar? Hashirama didn't know, but he could certainly try. They were fated lovers, after all.

Otherwise, why would most of the village think that Madara, and the Uchiha clan by extension, was the one who pushed the beast to attack Hot Water, causing the Uzumaki Princess to become its master? Only Madara could have known, because only Madara would have cared. The beasts were the key.

“You know what I've realized over the years?” Hashirama said out loud to a man who was long gone. “Our people need to be told what to believe in, in order to be happy,” he said as he fixed the roots of the cage he'd been painstakingly building with his own hands. “We didn't have that before. Before, life was thirty short years, and a violent death to follow. We didn't _know_ we could be happy. When I fell in love with you, my father betrothed me to someone I barely knew, and I couldn't fathom a single thing that could even _remotely_ be considered 'happiness.' But after his death, after we stopped warring, when we joined hands, I could _see_. Without putting an end to the fighting, without _demanding_ our allies to join hands, we would never have reached this point in our lives. So why can't we do it again?”

Hashirama fastened another root to the bamboo bars and wrapped the corners with twine. “One land under one benevolent ruler. With the tailed beasts, I can gift a certain amount of power to each of the shinobi nations as a gesture of good will. The rest will be with us, jinchuuriki integrated into our society, treated as priests and priestesses of old gods. But I'm not trying to rule the world, Madara, you _must_ understand that. I simply want Konoha to be an example of how the rest of the world _should_ be. One nation, under one will.”

Hashirama finished fixing the last bit of the cage and stepped back to marvel at the behemoth structure. It spanned the circumference of the banyan tree's circle of roots, and was only accessible by tunnels Hashirama had carefully masked beneath dirt and seals. He smiled warmly. It would be Madara's new home – the home he'd share with Hashirama once he was safely back in Konoha.

“You'll understand once you're back,” Hashirama promised. “It's not a cage, Madara. It's a home – it's our happiness.”

* * *

“You got lucky,” the old woman hissed scathingly. “The seals we sold to Kiri can kill on command. All Ashina did was put a blocker on your chakra that burned when you became agitated. You know nothing of _real_ pain and suffering. You can't because you're a privileged little princess. There are no princesses in Kirigakure.”

“When?” Mito asked blankly. The beast had gone quiet, along with her banshees who had taken to singing after she'd made her sacrifice.

“Well before your time,” the old crone bit back. “Sixty years now? Maybe even more. They were in a position to bargain. Powerful manipulators of chakra, ones that could control the wind and plants even. Nothing comes from free, especially not power.”

“They use our seals to control their people,” Mito summarized.

“It's a caste system, you fool!” The old crone hissed again. “It keeps the lower castes in line, and ensures no one bests the Mizukage. Now, do you understand?”

“They want to kill us so no one else finds out,” Mito whispered. “... and because we created the seals, we're also the ones who know how to break them.”

The old woman seemed to lose some of her strength, but she remained upright, eyes cold as glass. “They didn't have the power before, but sixty years can make a _big_ difference. The beast attacking you was an opportunity to strike. It would have happened eventually, but your proposed tragedy was a good primer. With the last princess dead, the island was as good as done. No other kage, especially not the Hokage, would ever learn those seals existed because you would have been dead.”

“And if I'd lived? What then?”

“Then nothing. You wouldn't have had the knowledge to break the seals, and eventually, assassins would have been sent after you. But at least then, the Hokage could have protected you. They could have veiled their strikes as political maneuvers. No suspicion would have befallen them regarding their true purpose.”

“My sisters – have they perished?”

The old crone chuckled, her wrinkled lips stretching into a ghastly smile. “They were sold early to powerful men. Oh, Kiri tried to kill them, of course, but they haven't managed it yet. Besides, they know nothing, and none of their husbands are the Hokage. Now, with all the power the Mizukage has accumulated, they don't _have_ to worry about your useless little sisters. They can just destroy the island _altogether_.”

“So that's it? Not our red hair, or our long lives, but this?” Mito felt the bile creep up her throat. “We creat- no. We _innovated_ the seals that could enslave a human being. _That's_ why we can trap tailed beasts all on our own. We're the masters of the seal – we're slavemasters.”

“We are – and _you_ , wretched girl, you've enslaved the Demon Fox!”

Beneath Mito's chest, the beast howled with laughter.

* * *

As the sun rose, the pyres on the beach died down to wisps. Mito watched as the children shuffled out in lines to scoop up the remains to release into the sea.

Were these the children Kiri wanted dead? Most of them didn't even know how to balance a pebble on their nose, much less wage war. Half of them were refugees themselves, the other half war orphans. Who here could try and break such an old seal, a seal that guaranteed control over a human being's very life? At least a puppet's strings could have told a creature that their life was never their own, but a _seal?_ A seal could be hidden beneath a smile, or a pair of trousers. Her people had created seals that went against the natural order, against everything their Queen Mother had ever stood for.

“We did this to ourselves,” Mito realized.

“We did,” she heard Genki say. She turned around to find her cousin standing some feet away.

“You knew?” She asked tiredly.

He nodded. “He told me when he branded me that it could be worse – so much worse.”

She turned back to the beach and the sea, saw the children walk some yards into the water before dumping the ashes of the fallen. “What will do? What _can_ we do? The Uzumaki – they've cursed an entire nation, and out of what? Greed?”

“We can't choose our histories,” Genki groused, “but we can do something about the legacy we leave behind. Our clan brought a curse to the land, and we can't change that. These people, however,” he gestured to the children below, “they're innocent. We have to do everything we can to ensure they live and thrive. Their futures will be a testament that at least two Uzumaki in this world refused to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors. We won't spread pain and terror for the sake of power.”

“Is it penance, then?”

“Is it wrong to want penance?” He asked softly.

Mito thought about all the Kiri nin she would kill when their ships were spotted in the horizon. She wasn't Ashina, and she wasn't a Senju. She had a long life and red hair. She had her chakra and her seals. She had-

Mito jumped as if pierced with a spear. Genki grabbed her by the shoulders and steadied her on her feet. She breathed heavily as her heart beat wildly in her chest, the beast _baying_ with unrestrained, maniacal joy.

* * *

For Izanagi, it was a trade, this body for a better one, these eyes for a better pair, one life for another. A dream – Madara knew that soon, all the pain and all the suffering would be traded in for a wonderful dream where everyone and everything he'd ever lost would come back into his arms. There would be no reason to admit that everything was already lost, that his body and his ability to reason were both gone, that that his psychosis had only gotten worse, because a dream – a dream was worth it all. Madara sought the dream more passionately than he'd sought anything else, and he was determined to achieve it no matter what. An infinite world with no pain, no death, no tears – an infinite dream.

He wheezed into the night and curled in on himself, alone.

* * *

Thousands of miles away, Mir Syed stood at the head of his ship, looking towards the island where the red demon lived.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Footnote 1: Mir Syed is the name I gave the third Mizukage. 
> 
> And this kicks off the latter half of the story! Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see y'all next month!


	11. Hourglass

The Mizukage's ships were painted black and grey. From a distance, they seemed to blend in with the pulsating water and the bleached sky that threatened snow.

They'd come into view two weeks after Mito had spoken to the old crone. Once the purple flames were lit along the coast, the island went into lock-down. Civilians were led into the deepest recesses of the island, and hidden beneath layers of thick forestry and protection seals. Soldiers were stationed in a circle around the camp, while soldiers on giant herring birds roamed the skies and kept an eye out for Kiri's frigatebirds.

The remaining few soldiers were divided between the beach and three of Mito's oldest ships. In the end, the majority of the non-manipulators were left to guard the civilians, while a large portion of the shinobi were stationed across the beach. Mito herself only took thirty seamen.

“If the last ship falls, go,” she ordered Nijima and Genki. Both men nodded before barking a 'Yes, Commander!' in unison.

She turned away and trudged towards her ship. Ugaki proffered a calloused hand to help her climb aboard. She took the offer and hoisted herself aboard the wooden vessel.

She gazed at the two ships flanking her own. In total, she surmised she had maybe a tenth of the manpower likely boarding the Mizukage's ships. Her vessels didn't boast steel alloy, and didn't use the manufactured sails the Land of Water had managed to popularize over the years. Hers were old, hand-sewn sails made from hides and other materials available on the island. The ship itself was a relic of the many battles Mito had fought over the years. Unlike the armies of the rest of the shinobi world, Ashina never gave Mito's soldiers the newest weapons. She still wondered if the man had, had any faith in them to begin with.

Mito breathed deeply before gesturing for her seamen to begin moving. The ships came to life not soon after, and they set sail under the white sky.

Mito smelled the snow in the clouds and wondered if the battle would be over by then.

“All hail Queen Mother,” she whispered softly.

Ugaki stomped one foot and raised his sword towards the sky. “All hail Queen Mother!” He yelled, and the rest of the ship yelled with him.

Beneath Mito's chest, the beast hungered.

* * *

Mir Syed's sea spiders were calm creatures he'd picked up early in the Mizukage's ranks. They liked his disposition, his apathy, and his unwillingness to engage in tomfoolery. They were behemoth creatures who tended to make contracts with water specialists, but Mir Syed was learned in wind release. He'd been watching the sun set when he'd first met one of their tribe. The creature had eyed Mir Syed like he was something otherworldly, although he was plain in both clothes and demeanor. Mir Syed hadn't minded. He'd simply plucked some dried spider lilies from the folds of his kaftan and offered it to the creature as a gesture of good will.

The creature had been one of the tribe's youngest, out poking about the domain of humans. Not long after, a contract had appeared in his drab room. Not long after that, he'd floated from island to island, accompanied by his sea spider summons.

A flick of his wrist, and a deep, orange torso rose out of the water on thin, wiry legs. The spiders swam silently in front of his ship, mostly hidden beneath the cover of water, but now that'd they'd reached the first set of whirlpools, Mir Syed halted both the movement of his spiders as well as his fleet.

Less than an hour later, he spotted the red demon's ships.

Another flick of his wrist, and the first sea spider raised a leg. Mir Syed took the cue to flicker to its abdomen. In tandem with the spider, Mir Syed released a heavy gale to accompany the striking leg. A windcutter sliced through the water and struck one of the red demon's ships. The deafening crack of wood snapping sent a shiver through Mir Syed's spine. For several seconds, he watched quietly to see if the red demon would attempt marching forward with her remaining ships. His plan was to have a squad of shinobi on frigatebirds circle around and quietly jump down on Uzushio's ships, but if his and the sea spider's windcutter could take out one ship, then maybe the aerial units wouldn't need to engage this time around.

Mir Syed should have known better.

Just then, something jolted beneath his feet and he almost lost his footing. Mir Syed's eyes darted down to his spider. The creature's legs quivered in the water, and the harried movements shook the water violently. He flickered back to his ship before the movement threw him off the creature's abdomen and into the sea below.

“What's wrong with the spider?” His lieutenant asked pointedly.

Mir Syed ignored the shinobi and gazed upon his shaking familiar. The windcutter was a common technique he'd practiced with his summons. It shouldn't have expended that much energy. The summons was also an older creature, and well-versed in the techniques of shinobi. A windcutter was a palate taster, barely an inch of what the spiders and Mir Syed had to offer in a battle.

When he finally noticed the water surrounding the ships begin to glow, he took a sharp breath. He turned to his lieutenant to tell him to kickstart the ships and begin their retreat, but by the time he'd turned around, his lieutenant was no longer behind him. In fact, many of the ships' leading mates were suddenly no longer at their designated perches.

A piercing screech resounded through the air. Mir Syed turned back to his sea spider and watched in horror as its legs began to buckle.

* * *

“Now!” Mito barked. A barrage of seals were activated across the water, and the volcanoes beneath the sea erupted.

* * *

Deep beneath the ocean, a cluster of volcanoes lived between the Land of Water's archipelago and Uzushio. There were many more, some beneath and near Hot Water, and one beneath Uzushio itself, but the cluster between Kirigakure and Uzushio were the most violent. For most, the string of whirlpools that separated the elemental nation from the sealmasters was the natural border, but those whose knowledge predated the current regime's teachings in the Land of Water knew that there was something much worse sleeping in the sea, knew that the whirlpools were merely window-dressing for the volcanoes itching to erupt. Once the whirlpools were reached, so were the volcanoes, and whereas many wars had been declared by the whirlpools, few had been enough to force the eruption of the gods sleeping beneath the whirlpools.

But Byakuren was enough. There were no more sages of the old regime left to warn the Mizukage's ships of the sleeping giants, and so when Mito spied the fleet, she'd signaled her squid to move.

The sea was full of surprises, after all, and Mito had sent her most skilled shinobi to wake three of them.

The squid were first, since they were already patrolling the volcanic border. Once they'd sensed the Mizukage's ships approaching, they'd quietly begun to shadow the fleet's movements, sending information back to seacrawlers that were one of her covert squad member's summons. The seacrawlers then carried the information to their summoners who were standing by beneath the waves, housed in protective bubbles. Mito moved her ships in line with the fleet's silent approach, and once the fleet had made it to the volcanic border, the squid attacked.

If there was one thing Mito had learned over the years, it was that the Kraken's children didn't like to be bothered. They were masters of the deep water, and rarely liked to come up to the surface unless absolutely necessary. When warring took place in the photic zone, they retreated deeper into the sea, and Mito herself only called on the squid when she couldn't manage it any other way with her salt chains and cages.

The Kraken itself rarely rose to the surface unless Mito herself was under severe duress. It had followed through for her when the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox had tried to eat her, and now the Land of Water was trying to annihilate her people, so just this once, it allowed her to meddle with its own.

Her squid had listened to her cries and come up to where the bleached sky met the ocean. They'd heard her pleas, and so they'd dragged her enemies from their ships and into the depths as payment for her distress. They'd also rescued every soldier on the ship that was first attacked. Mito counted zero casualties, and it was all thanks to the sea and its children. She whispered another prayer to Queen Mother and breathed deeply.

The covert squads who'd activated the seals below the surface finally climbed aboard her ship. Instantly, the medics surrounded them and began to warm their skin and feed them soldier pills. They were hollow-eyed and emaciated, having spent weeks beneath the ocean on rations and basic air filtration.

But they were alive – and they'd awoken Queen Mother's children.

“The magma's taken out the summons,” said one of the women dressed in the native red and greens of the forest-dwellers of Uzushio. “They won't be able to move the ships by the time it rises and hardens against the propellers.”

“Once that happens, you can take down the ships,” rasped the oldest of the group, a bald man with three tattoos along the side of his left jaw.

Mito nodded and waved for one of her seamen. “Get them back to the island,” she ordered, and within minutes, the group was on its way back to Uzushio as Mito's remaining two ships inched towards the screams of the Bloody Mist.

* * *

Destruction was easy; Mir Syed always knew that. Necks snapped easily beneath willing hands, and blood was much quicker to draw than most people imagined. Mir Syed's intimate relationship with Death was a revered pair. All winners of Kiri's graduation exams were married to Death at the time of their victory. Mir Syed always knew that when the time came for them to consummate their union, it would be as painful and deafening as the screams of his dying classmates.

He saw the red demon when her ship was finally within shooting distance. He hoped that at least _one_ ship in his fleet was still manned enough to blow a hole in the red demon's chest, but that all disappeared from his thoughts when he saw the red demon swing from her chains and land flat on the water between her ships and his fleet. He realized then that all hope was lost.

It should have been the face. It could have been the teeth too, but neither struck horror in his chest, not like the gait. He looked at the unusual slump of her shoulders, the leg that bent awkwardly at an angle – the Gimp Queen. Her dark auburn hair was fastened into twin buns, one on each side of her head. Paper seals fluttered from each bun, fastened with what looked like sharp pins.

Mir Syed had never seen a more terrifying creature. Her eyes were set in deep, red sclera. He was facing a monster, something that went against the very laws of nature. He wondered if she'd allow him to surrender.

When the whirlpools began to spin faster and grow wider under her feet, he knew his answer.

Mir Syed screamed for his remaining shinobi to run. The back of the fleet was the least affected. They'd moved across the water in a diamond formation. The tail end of the fleet was the weakest, whereas the two sides were the strongest, while the head of the fleet held his power.

But his power was useless against a demon's. The tail, at least, still had enough space to break away from the rest of the fleet, and turn back around to the Land of Water's territory. That way, at least some of the soldiers could make it home.

And as long as one of them could carry a message back to the Mizukage, then not everything was lost.

Mir Syed's ship began to tremble like his sea spiders. The whirlpools had gotten larger with time, and the force of the rotations now caused the vessels to move against Mir Syed's will.

He looked over the edge of the ship and down at the soft rock below. The magma had crawled up some feet of the ship and jammed both the propellers as well the protective seals. Most of the ships had been unable to escape the raging volcanoes beneath.

He looked up at the red demon commanding the whirlpools surrounding her. He looked at the beady eyes and the sharp teeth, the red hair that Byakuren hated so much.

Screams resounded through the air and Mir Syed's gaze turned towards the right side of his fleet. A massive whirlpool had begun to suck his ships in, his shinobi going down with them.

“NO!” Mir Syed screamed and used a hasty blast of air to propel himself towards his men.

Before he could make it even two yards, something wrapped around his left ankle and slammed him down on the deck. He dizzily looked down to his foot and saw a crystal chain wrapped around his ankle. He used his arms to hoist himself up and found that similar chains had wrapped themselves around many of his men, hindering them from moving to help their comrades, or escape to the back of the fleet.

When Mir Syed turned to the red demon again, she'd come closer to his ship. Hers were now far behind her, still in the water, unaffected by the whirlpools that were breaking down his fleet.

When the first ship was completely sucked into the void, Mir Syed snapped. With a violent grunt, he cut the chain's hold on his ankle, and used his wind release to create a protective bubble around his person. Then he darted from his ship to the ones bearing out to the side. As the second and third ships were quickly being sucked in, Mir Syed summoned as much strength as possible to read the chakra signatures within the collapsing vessels, and created a flurry of wind whips to cast a lifeline down to the screaming soldiers.

When he felt the first hands grip the whips, he sighed in relief and pulled the men from the breaking ships and tossed them to the vessels closer to the center of the fleet. The others in the fleet followed his example and created water and metal whips, protective air bubbles, and used other techniques to move shinobi out of the whirlpools' path of destruction and towards safety.

Mir Syed saw giant frigatebirds roam the sky, saw rope hang from the saddles, and balked in horror.

It was the beginning of the end, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“ARE WE FIGHTING FOR THE MIZUKAGE, OR ARE WE RUNNING LIKE DOGS!?” Someone bellowed behind him. Mir Syed turned to one of the Hoshigaki clan members who'd been assigned to one of his leftmost ships. He clutched a sword with a serrated blade, and seethed with something worse than hatred.

The vitriol was focused entirely on Mir Syed. How was he supposed to explain to a warrior that they'd lost the battle before they'd even set sail?

Just then, the first flakes of snow fell to the sea. The stealth seals on the birds were laid bare, the whirlpools sucked in ships and soldiers left and right, and now the sky itself betrayed them with an impending storm – Mir Syed would have willingly flung himself into the ocean if he didn't remember that he owed the Hoshigaki, _all_ of Water's shinobi, his life.

The sea could take him another day.

“Men will survive; idiots will _not!”_ He flung the Hoshigaki backwards into one of the center ships. Another shinobi caught the clan member and worked to subdue them while Mir Syed turned back to the red demon.

And she was here, in front of him, the red demon with the sharp teeth and the burnt face, the heavy limp, and the brown eyes that were slits set in deep, red sclera. She'd won – the red demon had won.

“Will you surrender?” She asked softly. Mir Syed found it odd how quiet her voice was, as if it belonged to soothsayer and not a monster. “Hurry!” The demon barked immediately after. Mir Syed jumped. It was as if she'd switched personalities in an instant. Her eyes were narrow and cold again. “I'm hungry,” she continued harshly, “you should answer now before I change my mind.”

“Yes,” Mir Syed answered with zero hesitation. There was no bargaining with beasts. “My life for my crew's.”

The red demon sighed just once before lunging.

* * *

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox preened as its host tore through scores of men. It hummed to itself as it bathed in a shower of deep red, feeling the blood soak through the host's skin and into its beastly aura.

Once she'd taken out most of the fleet, she carried their leader by his neck to the center of the ships. The whirlpools still raged, sucking vessels into the void while snow fell listlessly. Some shinobi attempted to attack her, but only managed to be dragged overboard by dark, black tendrils. The rest watched in awe as their fallen general hung limply from her clutches. The shinobi in the sky had long-since retreated, but not without the woman taking down at least half the birds with chains and black tentacles.

_**You know, there was Little Girl long before there was Little Woman.**_ The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox said nostalgically within her chest. _**Little Girl different from other hosts. Humans sacrificed Little Girl because she was slow. They thought that if they used one with a bad head, they'd be able to control me better. They were wrong, of course. I ripped through Little Girl like fire through a field.**_

In front of the assorted Kiri-nin, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's current jinchuuriki ripped through the general's pale throat with her jagged teeth. She tore off a chunk of sinewy meat and chewed hungrily as blood and dried spider lilies spilled to the ship's deck.

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox hummed contently as it tasted its first bit of fresh, human flesh in a long, long time. It hummed an old tune as its host devoured the meat hungrily. _**Little Girl barely ten.**_ The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox remembered. _**But little or not, still a sacrifice. Humans have a preference, Little Woman. They make the youngest and the weakest suffer the most. The girls especially, the humans find best to do away with. Such hatred for womanhood – your kind more hateful than I will ever be.**_

His host worked through several more chunks of flesh before finally turning to gaze upon the frozen, horrified eyes of the Kiri-nin. The Fox basked in the rejuvenating power of raw, human flesh and chuckled as his host regained her senses.

She tossed the still-breathing form of the general at the feet of the shell-shocked Kiri-nin, and licked his blood from her lips and fingers. One of the Kiri-nin tore off a piece of their tunic and pressed it against their general's shredded neck.

The man blinked dully up at the sky. He was alive, if barely.

“Tell the Mizukage I'm coming,” she rasped before flickering away.

* * *


	12. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito pulled out intestines with care and precision. She put the sinewy flesh in her mouth and chewed softly as the soldier's eyes glazed over with the cold embrace of death. By the time Mito finished eating his entrails, he'd passed on to the next world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Onwards to the final half of the story! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**_Six Months Later_ **

“The coast is lost. Many of the rebel leaders have decided to emulate the events in Uzushio. Four landowners we were allied with have been executed since news spread that the Mizukage's navy was taken out by the Princess. They say Yugakure is next up for a coup.”

Hashirama listened quietly as Susumu Yamanaka continued his report.

“We've tracked letters of congratulations from Wind,” the Yamanaka clan leader continued, “they're the only elemental nation that recognizes the Princess as the new leader of Uzushio, not counting Water. Earth and Lightning have remained quiet, though my spies tell me there were scouts from Uzushio at the Raikage's sky palace not too long ago. Apparently the Princess defeated several Lightning tribes in her youth, including the Raikage's. He may want to avoid allying with her due to his past humiliation.”

“And public sentiment?” Hashirama finally asked, hands neatly clasped behind his back.

Susumu Yamanaka took a sharp breath before answering. “The commoners... they've taken up arms across the smaller coastal communities. Some still think the Princess should relinquish her control to one of her commoner generals, but mostly, they're happy to see Ashina dead. Turns out he'd been blocking supply routes for decades, and that many owed him debts that were difficult, if not impossible, to repay. It seems that those debts have died with him. The Princess has reopened the port facing Land of Fire, and many of our more tenuous partnerships have ignored halt decrees and resumed trade with them.”

“Have we accepted any refugees?”

“No... we haven't.”

“And why do you think that is?” Hashirama asked softly. Though the two men were facing each other in an otherwise empty room, Hashirama's gaze was always a centimeter off Susumu's visage, so it looked as if though the Hokage was staring at something _just_ out of eyesight.

Susumu ignored the cold apathy in the younger man's eyes and cleared his throat before speaking again. “My understanding is that the Princess doesn't want any of her people entering Land of Fire unless absolutely necessary. Refugees have entered Wave Country, along with other island territories with no allegiance to Konoha or Kiri.”

Hashirama nodded, but his eyes were still off, looking into the shadows behind Susumu Yamanaka. “People are happy that Ashina is dead, but let's be honest - was it Ashina's death that inspired this... Or was it revolution? Perhaps the Mizukage's defeat?”

Susumu tried not to show his ire. “I would say a combination of both, Hokage-sama.”

“Perhaps... but I like to think of it from a more romantic perspective,” Hashirama said thoughtfully. “Ashina's execution was merely a show – the real testament to her power was taking down the Mizukage's navy without losing a single soldier. That, Susumu, is something to be respected. If one woman can take down an entire navy, then why can't farmers chase out landowners? What's to stop smaller nations from banding against a common threat? If one can do it, can't they all?”

Susumu didn't answer. Instead, he looked at the dark circles underneath Hashirama's eyes and wondered if the man had slept at all in the last month.

“She let the general the live,” Hashirama continued with an eerie smile.

“Yes, but he had his vocal cords torn out,” Susumu said with barely contained annoyance. “We intercepted missives between the Mizukage's castle and posts on the outskirts of the archipelago – they call the Princess the 'Gimp Queen.' They've elevated her to _queen_ status, Hokage-sama.”

“As they should,” Hashirama hummed. “Our fault for not recognizing that the commander of Uzushio's army and the last Princess of the Uzumaki clan were one and the same.”

A chill crept up Susumu's spine. “We couldn't have kno-”

“-but we should have,” Hashirama interrupted pointedly. “It shows a gap in our intelligence. How many years were we under the impression that the Uzumaki ruled the nation through money, not military might? Sure, they've fought their battles, but nothing so egregious that Ashina had to borrow _our_ soldiers... The Princess handled it. No – not Princess, the _Commander_ handled it. That's what she was, _is_ , and we didn't have a clue until it was too late.”

Susumu tried to swallow the fear in his throat, but the temperature in the room fell steadily with each breath.

“Tobirama didn't even see it, and usually he's good at this kind of thing,” Hashirama said bemusedly. “The last princess of the Uzumaki clan, carrying out a coup with her lieutenants, a mark of true strength, skill, and gumption. I didn't even think about her legacy when I agreed to marry her.”

“... what would you like to do, Hokage-sama?”

Hashirama didn't answer for several seconds. The temperature dropped so low that Susumu could feel the chill begin to creep into his bones. After about a minute, Hashirama let out a big sigh.

“I guess we can wait and see,” the Hokage mused. “Madara's finally on the move again, so he'll need to be dealt with before anything else.”

Susumu nodded gravely. “Yes, we should-”

“ _I will_ ,” Hashirama corrected the older man. “You and the rest of the council will manage the public's disposition of the Uchiha, and make sure to track the Gimp Queen's movements. Touka and Tobirama will assist me in taking Madara down.”

Susumu was taken aback. “Your cousin has taken a step back from active duty, and your brother is working with the Shimura on some unsavory experiments to further expand his network of trackers in the Uchiha compound. You can't possibly think to use them in this operation. Take an Aburame, for the Sage's sake!”

Hashirama let out a soft string of chuckles while Susumu gaped at his leader. The dark circles underneath Hashirama's eyes crinkled menacingly with each chuckle, and Susumu had to will himself to stay in place as every fiber in his body screamed at him to run.

Hashirama stopped laughing and took a moment to gaze at the tall figure of the Yamanaka clan head. When Susumu exhaled sharply, Hashirama stepped closer and looked into the older man's hard, gold eyes.

“My cousin will be rejoining the ranks,” the Hokage enunciated slowly. “Six months is ample time for her to recover from her trauma and failures. Tobirama is a handful, but she'll manage him if he tries anything.” Hashirama abruptly turned away and sighed. Susumu exhaled slowly while Hashirama began pacing the room. “He still wants to shape my future,” Hashirama lamented.

“You can't let his childish whims dictate your actions, Hokage-sama,” Susumu said carefully. “Tobirama's plans are sabotaging our peace efforts. You can't trust him to help you bring down Madara without inciting a riot.”

“He thinks you plan to marry your children to Uchiha so that they can become your little weapons,” Hashirama said absently.

Susumu couldn't help but scoff. “If forging a few marriage contracts to avoid a full-scale civil war is a crime, then please enlighten me.” Susumu mentally berated his tongue, but didn't retract his words.

“No, you're right,” Hashirama agreed. “And that's why I want him close by. I trust you'll be able to get the Shimura under control while my brother is occupied with this Madara business?”

Susumu nodded, even though Hashirama was behind him and out of sight. “We've already recorded all of the details of their experiments. My men will have those to you by tonight.”

“Good. I can sense Madara's illness has reached its peak – he should have died from the disease months ago, but he's pushed through this long for a reason. I want to know why, Susumu, and I suspect my brother's experiments will help me understand him better.”

“He has to be stopped, Hokage-sama.” Susumu meant both men, the Uchiha and the younger of the Senju heirs.

“He will,” Hashirama said so softly that Susumu had to strain his ears to make sure he heard him correctly.

“Then I will inform the council of what they need to hear, and have my men begin quarantine of the Shimura compound.”

“He sent me a hawk, you know.”

Susumu almost jumped when Hashirama came back into his field of vision. His hands were still clasped behind his back, and the coldness in his eyes had somehow grown colder. Susumu gulped and stared at the wall behind the Hokage instead of into his eyes.

“I've agreed to meet him in a week's time, out by the river where we used to play as children,” Hashirama continued absently. “I suspect he wants to do battle there one last time before he dies.”

“All men deserve their last rites,” Susumu lied brazenly. “Perhaps battling at that river is Madara's way of dying where he wishes to rest in peace.”

“Perhaps,” Hashirama said with a hint of sadness, “but I will handle that. Shall we, Susumu?”

Susumu nodded once before flickering out of the Hokage's private war room. Once he was far enough away from the Senju compound, he bent over and threw up.

* * *

Thousands of miles away, powdered pigments stained dancing feet.

“Won't you celebrate with us?” One of the maids asked excited as she applied a cooling agent to Mito's seething leg.

“Later,” Mito promised.

“The men have prepared a dance for you,” the maid teased. “We haven't had a war dance in almost thirty years!”

Mito nodded indulgently. The last time Uzushio's soldiers were invited to a war feast and presented with a dance was before Mito's mother had left her at the barracks. She'd witnessed the feast and dance from afar, since it'd been inappropriate for nobility and higher-ranking Uzumaki to partake in civilian-led festivities. Mito had tailed her more precocious cousins with an army of cats, and climbed a tree some yards away to view the feast from a distance.

She still remembered the thrash of drums and the rhythmic clanging of taals. The beach had been painted in shades of yellow, orange, and green. Powdered pigments had been mixed in with the top layer of the sand, so when the dancers beat their feet against the little grains, the soles of their feet were soaked with color. At the conclusion of the dance, commoner men and women had taken vermilion and streaked it across the cheeks of the soldiers the dance had been prepared for.

Mito bid the maid goodbye after she dressed her leg.

 _ **You can have your pick,**_ the Beast crooned lasciviously. **_Humans uglier than Little Woman have desire fulfilled in height of ecstasy. But careful though... Best not eat your whore by mistake while fucking!_**

Mito snarled while the beast cackled wildly within. Then her stomach growled.

The steady beat of drums and assorted string instruments continued to filter into her barrack. A beautiful set of voices began to sing, and Mito felt her stomach hollow and and heart swell at the same time.

 _ **Best fill that hunger before it's too late**_ , the beast said at last before going silent.

Mito wrapped a shawl around her head and shoulders before exiting her barrack. The banshees in her head urged her to go to where the music was, but her stomach pulled her in the opposite direction. She limped almost a mile into the forest, before coming upon a man-made cave carved into the bottom of a low hill.

The trio she saved in Hot Water stood guard in front of the cave. They nodded their heads in acknowledgment before opening the gate. Before she stepped into the darkness, she turned around to the children standing sentry. “Go to the feast. There is no need for you to waste the night here.”

The green-haired girl began to protest, but the blonde girl flicked her forehead, bowed politely, and began dragging her friend away. The boy bowed deeply before turning away to follow his friends. Mito smiled sadly at the retreating children. Once they were out of sight, she closed the gate behind her, and went deep into the cavern.

* * *

Madara looked at himself in the tall mirror he'd procured on his latest trip beyond the mountain. It was old and rusted along the edges, with a crack in one corner. It was nothing like the treasures back at the Uchiha compound, mirrors that were passed down from generation to generation, bejeweled and perpetually clean.

And yet, Madara marveled at image in front of him – his ghastly, gaunt figure dressed in red armor.

“I'm ready now,” he whispered to the ghost perpetually tailing his side. “See? I'm ready now.” His chapped lips pulled into a sickly smile as shaky fingers drifted over steel, wool, and mesh. Seals carved into the chipped armor were rigged to collect DNA samples and other chakra markers. “I'm finally at my weakest,” he told the ghost with the blindfold over where its eyes used to be. “He'll kill me in an instant, Izuna, and when he does...”

Mania burned in Madara's eyes, the kind of mania that would never have phased the antique mirrors of the Uchiha Clan. In the cracked, old mirror, however, he looked much like the ghosts that were said to haunt the mountain trails.

Madara's atrophied fingers felt around the skin beneath his eyes. “Izanagi will come,” he murmured almost helplessly. “And once it brings me back, I'll get straight to it, Izuna, I promise.”

Madara's eyes began to bleed red again, leaving his fingers and cheeks streaked with crimson. “His power will complete the puzzle,” he shuddered. “All he has to do is kill me. The moment he kills me... I will awaken.”

* * *

The Kiri-nin screamed when Mito slashed open his stomach. The other soldiers looked away as screams eventually became whimpers, which then quieted into nothingness once the victim went into shock and died. Sometimes it was blood loss, sometimes fear – Mito didn't bother to keep count.

Mito had wanted to kill them before feeding, but the beast had called that cheap, and reminded her that she'd _chosen_ this, that if it had been the way nature had wanted, then he would have eaten _her_ instead.

So she ate them alive. They writhed beneath her maw, clawed at her back, the ground beneath, anything that could help them push her off, but they never succeeded. Since she took down their ships, she'd eaten three every night, Kiri's soldiers that she'd captured using her squid and the whirlpools, soldiers who were thought to have drowned into the depths of the ocean, but were actually stolen and then locked away in her forest.

Mito pulled intestines out of the third soldier's stomach with care and precision. She put the sinewy flesh in her mouth and chewed softly as the soldier's eyes glazed over with the cold embrace of death. By the time Mito finished eating the last of his entrails, he'd passed on to the next world.

Something exploded in Mito's chest, and she was thrown back against the cave wall. The cowering shinobi watched as she writhed. Blood poured from her mouth and splattered against the floor and cavern wall. Her spine twisted and a sickening crack reverberated throughout the enclosed space. They watched as she landed on her hands and knees, black and red chakra crackling over her skin like a coat of armor, while her red hair floated in the shape of nine, distinct tails. Her eyes bled red and her claws bit into the cave wall.

They watched in horror as she stretched her mouth into a twisted smile.

* * *

“Soon,” Madara whispered, as he fell asleep on the cold ground. The lab around him glittered with cold efficiency. Everything was new and pristine, much like the labs he had back at the Uchiha compound, except he himself, except his armor, except the mirror. He would have to die with the old and broken, would need to perish as a vestige before he could revive as a hero, a scientist, and eventually a god.

“Soon, we'll have everything...”

* * *

The men walked into the cave to find the living Kiri shinobi frozen in horror while a beast-like entity sucked on the bone marrow of their comrades. When Nijima cleared his throat, Mito looked up with a blank stare.

“Is the festival over?” She asked with a husky growl.

“It's still going,” Nijima replied. “I thought it would be best if we... discussed matters while the soldiers were still occupied.”

“You'll have to make an appearance before the end, however,” interrupted Ugaki. “As is custom.”

Mito looked down on the arm bone she'd been sucking on diligently for the past few minutes. The banshees crowed for her to throw it away and join the revelry instead. They encouraged her to dance freely, to fuck freely.

Instead, she placed the bone on the ground, retrieved her shawl from the corner where she'd tossed it, and exited the cave with her lieutenants in tow.

* * *

They settled in Mito's barrack, circled around her low table. With time, the beastly chakra had retreated into her skin, leaving her, her natural color. The trio of children who were instructed to enjoy the festivities had somehow made their way back to Mito's barrack and insisted they join her.

And thus, her lieutenants sat quietly and looked down at their hands as the blonde girl wiped the blood from Mito's face, while the green-haired girl combed her hair. The boy stood sentry by her door, quiet as a mouse. Once her banshees finally quieted, Mito cracked her neck and exhaled. “So – what have you found?”

“The message has been sent to Kirigakure,” Nijima began, the most unfazed out of them all. “We had birds track some of their communications coming in from the outermost islands on the archipelago, and it seems the news has traveled far and wide that their navy was completely destroyed. They're begging the Mizukage for protection, but it doesn't seem like he's inclined to provide any.”

“And your threat to come after their leader hasn't exactly elicited any calls for rebellion,” Ugaki added cautiously. “If anything, it seems to have stoked fear in their hearts. The commoners might flee before they take up arms against Byakuren.”

“They will,” Mito promised them. “After I'm finished – they'll do the only thing they can.”

“But how can you be so sure?” Genki grumbled. “We've captured their own, and we're feeding them to a tailed beast. This won't incur a rebellion – only hatred.”

Mito didn't deny the assumption. “Then we have to work quickly.” She turned to Ugaki. “Did you find what I asked for?”

Ugaki nodded, but seemed hesitant. “But is this the best course of action? The beast's information could be wrong, and it could be leading us into a trap.”

The fox cackled inside Mito, causing her to flare her nostrils in distaste. When she saw Ugaki's form stiffen, she softened her expression while the beast continued to cackle inside. “I understand why you would doubt its words, but... it has proven its power.”

“But not its allegiance,” Nijima noted.

“Never that.” Mito found herself smiling sadly. “Unfortunately, information is all it will barter for now.”

The men nodded with a degree of fatigue only the beast could elicit in them. Finally, Ugaki sighed and opened a scroll on the low table, a detailed map of a remote region on the greater continent.

“That's where he is – Madara Uchiha, founder of Konohagakure.”

* * *

A week before the Mizukage's ships crossed into her waters, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox had asked her to drown herself.

 _ **Little Woman weak,**_ the beast had whined. **_Useless... Need stronger human._**

“Why?” She'd asked softly as she'd picked reeds. “I've promised you food – we're bound now.”

The beast had merely scoffed. _**Bound by hatred – but Little Woman is not strong. Need stronger.**_

“Beggars can't be choosers,” she'd said softly, picking up a small turtle.

The beast had gone quiet. In turn, her banshees had jeered at her to crush the turtle and throw it into the river, but instead, she'd petted its smooth shell before returning it to the ground.

“I promised you my soul,” she'd told the demon fox. “If you don't want it anymore, then that's too bad. I'm going to uphold my end of the bargain and save my people. You'll either help me, or sit back quietly.”

The beast had snarled and thrown her. She'd landed on her back, rocks digging into her skin. She'd cried out in pain as it squeezed her organs. Tears had streamed down the side of her face as she ground her teeth, but she didn't turn into a ball of raging magma. The beast, no matter how enraged, hadn't been able to break out of Mito's seal.

When it'd finally stopped torturing her, her eyes had found the sky, and she'd stared dully at the clouds as the pain subsided.

_**Provoking me... same as that night.** _

“Not my fault that you can't control yourself,” Mito had drawled, her eyes fixed on deep blues and pale whites.

The beast had growled once more, but not before Mito had finally picked up on the emotion it was trying so hard to hide beneath the guise of rage.

“Something troubles you,” she'd whispered, “now what could worry a tailed beast?”

… _**Your soul. Not as unclean. Must sully. Rage... where is your rage, Little Woman?**_

“It's tiresome to be angry all the time,” she'd told the beast. “Sometimes, you just have to speak. If you can't do that, then no one can help you – not even your jinchuuriki.”

… _**Does Little Woman think she can do what I ask of her?**_

Mito had closed her eyes to the beauty of the sky above, and retreated inwards where the demons lived. “You promised me power in exchange for my soul. Surely, food isn't the only thing you desire, so tell me. What is it that you want – and what can I do to ensure that you'll help me when I need you the most?”

* * *

“All of the seal masters who initially created the slave contracts for Byakuren are already dead,” Nijima said. “Ashina was the last one. I found records that he oversaw some components of the seal, but it doesn't look like he had knowledge of the full seal. I believe one thing the Uzumaki made sure of was that the full knowledge of the seal was only every with the clan head who agreed to Byakuren's request.”

“Ashina's father was leader at the time,” Ugaki continued, “but I don't think he passed on all of his knowledge to Ashina. Byakuren wouldn't have accepted such a clause, since the root of his control rests upon the seal's active status. Ashina and any future clan head could decide to break the seal and send the country into chaos, so it makes sense why the knowledge and records are limited.”

“But Ashina wasn't daft,” Mito found herself murmuring. “He kept them at bay until now, so he must have had _something_. They could have destroyed the island decades ago, but only decided to attack after I was sent away.”

“What if they knew Ashina was planning to leave?” Genki said thoughtfully. “In a way, sending you to the Senju was signing the contract our people have been avoiding for years.”

“And what contract is that?” The blonde girl piped up unexpectedly. The men stared at her with thinly veiled disgust.

Mito merely hummed as a damp cloth wiped at her brow. “What she said,” she hummed with a smile.

Genki chuckled. “The one where the Uzumaki swear fealty to the Senju.” A distant look seeped into his eyes. “The old bastard gave in.”

Mito didn't deny the assertion, and instead shed light on the other elephant in the room. “The beast has confirmed that my grandmother has no knowledge of the seal's components. She was never chosen to work on it.”

Genki grimaced. “So we have nothing. Every original seal master is dead now.”

“So you're sure the Uchiha will help us?” The green-haired girl asked abruptly, having stopped her brush mid-stroke. The lieutenants sighed in unison.

Mito smiled indulgently as the child hastily resumed combing her hair. “He will.”

“Will he, though?” Nijima clipped. “The rumors say he's planning to battle the Hokage soon. He has no interest in Uzushio, except maybe for the fox, but even that doesn't rank high on his list of priorities.”

“He's insane, Mito,” Genki reminded her. “He can't help us when we don't even have the full blueprints of the seal. The most he can do is tell us what's between the lines, but it isn't as if we can go back in time and watch the seal's creation in progress.”

 _ **But HE can**_ , the beast crooned inside Mito, **_with those eyes Little Woman will never possess_**.

Mito looked directly at her cousin. “If we are to do penance for the crimes our clan has committed against humanity, then we'll have to start by seeking help from those who've also suffered crimes against their right to live.”

“But Konoha's choice to oppress the Uchiha has nothing to do with the Uzumaki's crimes against Land of Water,” Ugaki reminded her.

“And they're cursed,” Nijima added.

“As am I,” Mito retorted.

A tense silence descended on the room, and soon, only the soft strokes of the green-haired girl's brush could be heard. The beast, too, seemed to retreat deep into her chest along with the banshees. Mito stared into space while the blonde girl finished wiping away the remainder of the blood visible on her skin, and draped a clean shawl over her exposed flesh.

In the distance, the drumbeats got faster.

* * *

Mito had met the beast in the sea of her mind. The cage her soul had built had been the same obsidian structure at the bottom of the ocean.

 _ **You woke me, Little Woman,**_ it had begun, **_but Little Woman isn't why I'm STILL awake._**

And that's how Mito Uzumaki learned of a man she'd never cared about before that very moment – a man named Madara Uchiha.

* * *

“The beast told me to find the Uchiha,” Mito recounted to her lieutenants and child soldiers, her eyes having bled red without her knowledge. A corrosive chakra became to engulf her skin, and both the girls yelped when they felt the heat pump unexpectedly off Mito's skin.

The lieutenants grabbed the children and moved the table away from Mito. They gave her a wide berth as her skin prickled brown, black, and red, her hair coiling into nine distinct tails as the shawl covering her flesh burned away to expose the cracked skin below. Her teeth were bloody and yellow, while her nails had grown in length and sharpness.

And yet her voice remained the same.

“You're right, Cousin,” Mito said softly, tendrils of black and red lava crackling across her skin, burning away the remnants of her clothes and spreading the distinct, hideous smell of bubbling fat and burning flesh. “He is insane, but he's achieved his clan's crown jewel. The demon calls it the Mangekyou Sharingan, an evolved state of the regular Sharingan.”

“They have more than one state, of course they do,” Genki deadpanned with a grimace.

“But what can the Sharingan do for us?” Ugaki wheezed between coughs, keeping the children behind him as smoke choked the air around them.

“They can read the past,” Mito recited from memory. “Those eyes can tell us how the seal was built and what we can do to break it. We need his eyes – we need him.”

“... but how?” Ugaki asked gravely. “How can he _do_ that?” He said with horror voice as Mito finally stood up.

And within seconds, her skin returned to its normal state, along with her nails, maw, and finally her hair. She stood mostly naked as the green-haired girl rushed to open the only window in the room, while the blond girl fetched her a blanket to drape over one-demonic body.

It was only after smoke had cleared that Mito spoke again. “Ashina was cunning – he would have kept something from the original seal for security's sake... something we can now use as a conduit for the Uchiha to read the past.”

“You say 'read' as if the past were a book,” Nijima said critically.

“Because the past _is_ a book,” the green-haired girl barked at Nijima. He glared at her with narrowed eyes as she huffed, exasperated. “It's part of Wave's religious creed – the past is a book meant to be read and understood, for only after we've read the past can we understand our present, and ultimately lead ourselves into the future. Our gods are in our histories.”

Mito's hand found itself on the little girl's head, patting it lightly. Nijima continued glaring, but Ugaki and Genki looked more pensive than annoyed.

“The Uzumaki cremate their dead, but they don't cremate their seals,” said a soft voice.

Mito's gaze landed on the boy who'd lost both his arms during their struggle against the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. He was tall for his age, but too thin, and without his arms, he looked out of place amongst soldiers. His hair was deep black, unlike the shades of red and tawny brown found on the island, not blonde like the girl whose parents had emigrated into Uzushio from Earth Country, or even green of the girl whose roots were in Wave.

He was a stray, a war orphan who didn't know much about his past, and he'd remained as such even after he'd lost his arms. Mito peered intently at the boy with the plain face and deep black hair, willing him to speak, to say what he'd meant so she could get a gauge of who he was – of why he was still here.

“We don't,” Mito matched his tone. “But how can old seals that have nothing to do with Byakuren's contract help us?”

The boy looked up and into her eyes. They were a pale green. “Your blood,” he remarked. “The seals left behind – at least one of them probably still has blood in it that belongs to the former clan head. If we give the seal to the Uchiha, perhaps he can read the past through the blood.”

The beast cackled with delight inside Mito's chest. It had known the answer all alone.

“Blood...” Nijima considered, “that could work. But many of the seals would be too old to just open up and read. We'll have to be careful.”

“But how can we trust the Uchiha to help us?” Genki reiterated. “He's insane, and will no doubt die soon since the Hokage's made it clear to the other nations that he plans to eliminate him. Even if we drag the mangy cur onto our island, who's to say he'll actually help us? He may very well use us to gain access to the fox.”

“Madara Uchiha will not die,” Mito said coldly. The beast's hatred seeped into her chest and she found herself shivering. “I won't let him. I'll drag him back by his hair, if I have to, but I won't let him die. He'll help us,” she promised her council, “I'll _make_ him help us.”

 _ **Spoken like a true beast**_ , crooned the Fox before going quiet again.

* * *

In Kirigakure, hundreds of soldiers choked to death on poisoned mist, painting the ground with mouthfuls of red blood.

“It's punishment,” said the Mizukage gravely, “for your failure to kill the demon.”

Mir Syed could not speak, for his vocal cords had been torn out by the Gimp Queen, and so he watched, silent as a spell.

“I waited until you were better, you see, because I need you to know that this is your fault,” Byakuren lamented, as if he wasn't the reason why all these men were choking to death in front of their wives and children after having survived the Gimp Queen and returned home. “It's only half the fleet, of course, I cannot execute _all_ of my navymen, but you see – you see now that you must always pay for your failures. It will teach you never to fail again.”

Mir Syed merely watched as the last man, a Hoshigaki, took his last breath before dying in the arms of his pregnant wife.


	13. Magnetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beast didn't care about the consequences, but Mito did. She knew there was a history between the two warriors that she was only superficially privy to. They hated each other, but they'd also been friends, once upon a time. For the beast, kidnapping the Uchiha was the price she had to pay in order to gain access to its power, but she thought the Uchiha could do so much more - _be_ so much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave a review! :D

Though Madara stood just across the river, Hashirama found the distance nearly impossible to bear. If he wished, he could simply flicker to where the latter stood, appear just inches from the pale face, close but not close enough because Touka and Tobirama were watching. Hashirama wished the world would rewind itself so it was just the two of them again. He missed skipping stones, missed being ambivalent to the world around them.

“The second you find an opening, you take him down – understand?” Hashirama ordered the two soldiers flanking his sides, one brother and one cousin. He'd given each a syringe full of sleeping potion Hashirama had perfected in his own lab, and traditionally used to take down tailed beasts. One syringe, Hashirama hoped, should be enough to take down Madara until Hashirama could get him the help he needed. Their new home underneath the banyan tree awaited its master, and once Madara was healed, all would be forgiven – Hashirama would make sure of it.

“Understood, Hokage-sama,” Touka and Tobirama responded in unison.

Hashirama smiled, still facing the gaunt creature across the river. The red light of the setting sun cast an unearthly aura on the surrounding trees and rushing water. Hashirama wondered if his ancestors were watching. He hoped they were. They'd blessed his will of fire all this time, but tonight, he wanted them to bless something just as as important.

He wanted them to bless his love.

* * *

Mito moved slowly across the bottom of the river. Following the current, she scaled the rocks and silt while the battle above ground wreaked havoc on the land and river. A thin layer of corrosive chakra shielded her body from the freezing temperatures, while her instincts helped her to dodge dirt and debris plunging into the cold depths.

_**Take him,**_ the beast growled urgently into her ear. _**Ignore the king and his fools, and do what men do best, Little Woman. Steal the prize; steal what's precious.**_

Mito grimaced in response. She breathed into the bubble protecting her head and focused her attention on the figures above the water. She counted four bodies, but only one of them was important. Her lieutenants had managed to gather enough intelligence to give her a time and a location for their duel, but neither they nor Mito had any clue if Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha were walking into the encounter alone, or if there would be an army behind each of them. She'd tried to coax the beast into giving her some answers, but it'd merely snarled at her and told her to use her brain, and so she had. She'd left Nijima in charge of communications, while Genki had taken it upon himself to prepare Madara Uchiha's new home.

Her child soldiers still guarded her cavern full of food, while the rest of her lieutenants feigned normality and carried about their usual business. Four days before the duel, she'd let the beast take over her skin, and jumped into the ocean alone. Then she'd swam for days, only coming up for freshwater and the occasional piece of fish. She'd reached the river a full day before the the two warriors. She'd slept beneath the depths, memorizing the currents so that when her prey finally arrived, she'd know _just_ when to drag him into the watery depths. If they had armies, then she planned to create a diversion resulting in the least amount of casualties.

Except Madara Uchiha came alone, and Hashirama Senju only brought two companions. It _should_ have been a simple catch, since there were only two spectators while she harbored a tailed beast, but she'd underestimated them all. The river and earth shook with their combined prowess. If Mito wasn't careful, then she could easily get caught in the foray.

Mito wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought. She sensed something gigantic descending towards the water, so she flickered to where jagged rocks arose from the riverbed. She steadied her feet into the silt and her body against the cold stone as the river screamed. A large meteor crashed into the water just shortly after, and Mito held tight. Before the water could fully engulf the meteor, a powerful force raised the large mass from the river and up into the air again. Mito watched it disappear from her sight with an expression of utter awe.

_**Hide like a coward while the prize gets away,**_ the beast hissed pettily. **_Stupid Little Woman... Enamored by the silliest things!_**

Mito flared her nostrils and swam away from the jagged rocks before latching onto a wall of mud. Just as she was about to speak to the beast, a clap of thunder shook the river as the meteor above was smashed to smithereens by an immense ejection of power.

Mito recognized the chakra now.

She remembered the representative from Konoha for whom she'd put on quite the show with Ashina's execution. It seemed the woman was important and trustworthy enough to be made to assist in the battle against Madara Uchiha. Mito scaled the mud wall while she tracked the woman's movements. When she was mere feet from breaking water, she let the protective bubble disperse and then gently rose above the water. She stopped just above her lips. Her sickly yellow eyes with their sharp slits carried the Kyuubi's power. She was almost a mile up the river from where the battle was raging, and yet she could see the scene with both clarity and precision.

Her gaze left the woman and honed in on Hashirama Senju's tall figure and billowing spikes of dark red wood. Purple flower petals floated listlessly in the water. Mito could smell their poison even in her position.

_**Slow!**_ The beast growled inside of her. _**Take him! Take him before the king sees you!**_

Mito ignored the beast's agitated aura and focused on the steady, methodical movements of the Hokage.

The beast didn't care about the consequences, but Mito did. She knew there was much more to the tale than the beast was willing to let slip, but there was _also_ a history here between the two warriors that Mito was only superficially privy to. She knew they hated each other, but they'd also been friends, once upon a time. For the beast, kidnapping the Uchiha was the price she had to pay in order to gain access to its power, but she thought the Uchiha could do so much more – _be_ so much more.

She knew the Kyuubi was testing her. There was something off about the Uchiha, something beyond her current understanding, but something she would nevertheless get to the bottom of. This was her one chance to prove to the demon that she was worthy enough to control its power.

The beast read her thoughts like an open book and cackled with glee inside her skull. Mito snorted, shifted her gaze, and honed in on her target.

Mito went over the notes in her head, ignoring the whining banshees and cackling beast. The Uchiha not only held latent power in his eyes, but he also held knowledge of the inner workings of Konoha's political and geographical blueprints. Leveraging all of that, Mito _could_ solidify her power and establish Uzushio as a working, independent territory free from the influence of Konoha's politics.

And she could do it all without the added bloodshed.

Her gaze darted between Madara Uchiha and the Hokage. With the Uchiha's eyes and his mind, Mito could find a way to circumvent Konoha and assume trade relations with territories deeper within the greater continent. The barriers the Land of Fire had erected over the years were still too strong to take down with mere missives, and she knew that since they were enforced by the ruling Senju clan, the only way to access the resources deep within the continent was to find all the hidden routes the Uchiha had leveraged to keep themselves afloat over the decades. Mito's ultimate goal was to save her people, but in order to achieve that, she had to free the slaves of Kiri and put an end to the Mizukage's reign. To do _anything_ , she first had to get Madara Uchiha.

And Madara was also the one thing the Hokage wanted dead.

_**If the key returns home, it will start a war,**_ the beast hissed in her ear, interrupting her thoughts. _**Key cannot die**_ , the beast continued. _**If he dies, you die.**_ _**He belongs to me**_ , the beast finished coldly.

Mito didn't question why the beast wanted to keep him alive after she was done with him. Deep down, she knew she should learn about the terms and conditions associated with Madara's capture, but Mito was running low on time. Kidnapping Madara Uchiha was the only option that didn't involve Mito succumbing to full possession by the beast. Though she knew little about the ill man and his circumstances, he was, unfortunately, her only route to rewriting her island's fate.

Mito tried to convince herself that it didn't matter that he was insane and sick, and that his bones jutted from his paper thin skin like the jagged stones reaching out of the riverbed. It was their fate. She would apologize to him later, when her island was no longer in danger, and before she sacrificed him to beast. She'd beg his forgiveness after they'd both perished, because as much violence and horror as Madara Uchiha had brought into their world, he'd never unleashed that violence on Uzushio.

And for that, she'd treat him kindly until the beast took him.

If the beast didn't finish him off and if he didn't challenge Mito, then he was free to leave. Mito inwardly nodded to herself. A fully-healed Madara Uchiha could take the shinobi world by storm, no doubt, but if he wanted to return to his homeland and wage war with the Hokage again, then Mito wouldn't stop him. He wasn't her enemy. He was a conduit for her plans, at best. At worst, he was just a sick soldier.

But if he turned around to try and best her instead, then she'd rip out his heart and eat it in front of him, the beast be damned. The beast cackled madly while Mito scrunched her eyes shut and willed her abrupt rage to quell.

_**The king loves,**_ the beast crooned in Mito's ear as she flared her nostrils. _**The king loves, but his love is cursed, Little Woman. King can never have the key... Neither in life, nor in death.**_

Mito grimaced again and began swimming towards the battle while the beast continued to chuckle inside her head. She filed the information away for future discussions, because she _was_ curious. She wanted to what it was that the Hokage loved, and why it mattered to the situation at hand, but now wasn't the time. Hashirama Senju's feelings could wait. Mito dove underwater and began channeling the beast's borrowed chakra into the river's currents as she propelled herself to the riverbed.

_**The key will die a quiet death in the eyes of the kingdom,**_ the beast continued to hiss as she pumped its black chakra into the earth and water, ** _but remain in the arms of the king, buried forever, locked away where nothing will ever touch it again besides the king._**

Mito flinched. If she thought about it, she supposed she could blame Hashirama Senju for her current predicament. If he hadn't agreed to marry her, Ashina would never have burned the seal into her soul. If he'd never cursed her, she wouldn't have lost control.

And if she'd never lost control, then the beast would have remained asleep.

Perhaps it was fate after all. Perhaps one of the reasons why _she_ had to capture Madara Uchiha was so he wouldn't be captured by something worse.

* * *

“DUCK!” Tobirama roared, and Hashirama missed the gust of wind cutters by the skin of his teeth, though almost a foot of his hair was sliced clean off. Hashirama frowned but didn't miss his cue. He erected walls of wood and staved off the barrage of attacks. Gritting his teeth, he bit back the pain coursing through his body.

Madara had managed to bite off a chunk of flesh from his left arm. Hashirama felt at least four broken ribs. The skin of his left leg had been flayed off, and pieces of his armor had broken off during the struggle. If he wasn't careful, then he was sure to lose a limb, and Hashirama didn't know if he could afford that.

Hashirama didn't know if he could keep Touka and Tobirama in line if Madara somehow managed to make him kneel even _once._

Hashirama grunted and focused his energy on dodging a burst of flame that managed to circumvent his protective wall. His skin tingled with equal parts pain and anticipation. On one hand, he was in agony over his flayed skin and torn flesh, but on the other hand, he was eager to learn that Madara's movements were becoming more and more erratic, even if his chakra was still burning hot. Hashirama concentrated on the wooden tendrils sneaking towards Madara's feet so that they could finally throw him off the lone pillar of rock he was standing on. Hashirama would walk out as the victor, he was sure of it. He'd come to this battle as a lover, not a soldier. Even as the earth began to shake menacingly beneath his feet, he refused to acknowledge defeat. Madara could unleash Hell on earth if he wanted to, but Hashirama would never fall – not in this world nor the next. His love was too great to stifle underneath the heat of the Uchiha's flames.

“Nii-sama!” Touka screamed. Hashirama's attention snapped to his cousin and found that she was reaching for him.

Hashirama blinked, and only _then_ realized that the rumbling of the earth _wasn't_ Madara charging another fireball at him. No – Madara's gunbai was already shattered, and his meteors were mere chunks of rock sitting at the bottom of the river. Touka and Tobirama's attacks had long since ended, and the only thing happened _now_ was an earthquake.

An earthquake – their love had caused the earth to quiver to its core.

“Take cover!” Tobirama yelled, but Hashirama's ears rang with the sudden movement of their surroundings. He dispersed his barrier and found that Madara was no longer standing on his rock pillar. His eyes searched wildly for Madara's ghastly figure. If the older man got caught in a rockfall or a tsunami, Hashirama would never forgive himself. He prepared to flicker across the battlefield to look for his beloved, but found that he wasn't fast enough. Tobirama's arm caught him around the waist. The youngest of the Senju pulled Hashirama back towards the forest while Hashirama watched in horror as the river below them seemed to crack at the seams.

“MADARA!” Hashirama screamed.

It dawned on Hashirama that fate wasn't on his side, not tonight. He had lied to his country, after all. He'd promised them he'd kill the Uchiha and end his reign of terror once and for all, but Hashirama was always going to betray his promise. He was going to save Madara. He was going to covet the one thing he couldn't have. He'd even managed to convince his brother and cousin to go along with his plan. He'd wanted it all, and now he would pay the price of his hubris.

Hashirama screamed in agony as the land crumbled beneath them. He screamed as the earth around them was swallowed into a wet, black hole. He screamed when his brother and cousin refused to let him rush forward and rescue his beloved.

He screamed and didn't _stop_ screaming, not even when he saw Madara desperately clutching to the edge of the cliff as the world disintegrated around them. He didn't stop screaming when a piece of debris slapped Madara off balance and sent him plunging into the black vortex of water churning below.

He didn't stop screaming, not even Madara disappeared from his vision once and for all.

* * *

Mito grabbed the Uchiha before the current stole him away. The manufactured earthquake would only last for a few more minutes before the earth steadied again. Her window was tight, and so she moved quickly.

She pulled the unconcious Uchiha into her watery embrace and began to rid him of his layers of heavy armor. He was shorter than her by almost a foot, but was wide and strongly built despite the malnourished state. In her arms, he fit perfectly.

It was only after she'd rid him of his last layer of armor that she realized a seal was crackling with power behind his left ear. It took Mito less than ten seconds to realize that the seal would activate shortly, and five more to neutralize its effects with a slight zap of her chakra. Then she peered into the face of her captive.

And found that he was perhaps the most beautiful thing she'd ever laid eyes on in her thirty-seven years.

But the piece of flesh hanging out of his mouth brought a grimace to her face. Mito scooped the flesh out of his mouth and let the current steal it away. Once the man was light enough to carry, she strapped him to her back with layers of chakra, and then began swimming away with the current.

* * *

“MADARA!” Hashirama roared as he finally managed to push off both his cousin and his brother. He scrambled towards the edge of the cliff while the earth continued to shake and shiver, and the water below threatened to sweep him off his feet.

Hashirama didn't make it far. Tobirama's water whip snaked around his flayed leg and pulled him back from the ledge. His screams turned into sobs, and the earth cried with him.

* * *

As the earthquake finally began to subside, Touka held down their frothing Hokage while Tobirama watched as river and earth finally found balance with each other again.

“Nii-sama!” Touka screamed.

Tobirama snapped to attention and caught his brother before he leaped into the water. Touka jumped and slammed into his brother's back, sandwiching the Hokage between them. Hashirama raged, his Mokuton making the forest shake with his agony in a smaller quake, but both Tobirama and Touka held him steady.

They stood steps from the precipice when Hashirama finally passed out in their arms. Tobirama locked eyes with his cousin for several seconds before his gaze drifted down to where the newly-formed valley stood. The coursing river cut through the land as a natural demarcation, thought its transformation was anything but natural. He wondered if their combined forces had exhausted the earth more than they'd realized, hence why the earthquake went as quickly as it'd come.

“Tobirama,” Touka croaked finally. He looked back to to his cousin who was also staring down at the river cutting through the valley, but found that her focus was on the current leading out towards the ocean. He followed her eyes and peered down at the roaring water below.

And saw _it_ slither beneath the waves, moving at a speed too clean, too _perfect_ to be some mere fish in the water. Tobirama's heart threatened to erupt in his chest while his eyes widened with fear.

“He's alive,” Touka hissed sharply.

Tobirama blanched. Whatever it was that had taken Madara wasn't human, but more than that, it had spared Tobirama and his family, as if making it clear that whatever conflict existed between Senju and Uchiha was moot in the grander scheme of things.

And Tobirama didn't know what kind of monster was strong enough to make a statement like that.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After 53,277 words, they finally meet ಥ_ಥ


End file.
